No cause for concern they said, just stay indoors and close your windows. Everything is going to be fine.
If that statement is true then why, after being stuck under the toxic cloud for nearly three hours yesterday, did I wake at 07.30 this morning with a pounding, spinning head and unable to catch my breath?
Answer: toxic clouds from burning fuel depots are real bad for you.
I woke suddenly. Something was wrong I was certain the moment my eyes sprang open. But what? I breathed in heavy. Nothing happened. I tried a second time. Still nothing. I bolted out of bed and ran into the kitchen. My chest burned. It felt constricted. My throat was itching and raw. I gulped on a glass of water, breathed and then coughed thick green and black phlegm from the bottom of my lungs.
This continued for the next half-hour. I cleaned my teeth, trying to get rid of the awful taste in my mouth. Still more lung butter came up. I could smell burning deep inside my nostrils. The taste in my mouth reminded me of the time I tried to siphon petrol from the car for a lawn mower. I coughed to the point of choking, my chest tightening up with every wretch, sharp pains burst under my left shoulder blade. This is not good I thought. Maybe I should quit smoking.
After a hellish morning at work, trying not to cough up all over the clients, or pass out as regular bouts of light-headedness took hold, I rang the NHS 24-hour help-line number that had been flashed up on the mainstream media reports of “safe” toxic clouds and expert discussions on whether the disaster would raise the price of petrol.
The front of my lungs, under the rib cage, felt raw, bloody, and the short sharp panic attacks of not being able to breath had not subsided. I needed some advice.
“Firstly, sit down and relax,” said the nurse on the other end of the phone.
“Relax?” I croaked. “I can’t breath properly. No oxygen and I die. You don’t need medical training to understand that.”
I told the nurse about being under the toxic cloud. The nurse went silent for a second then asked to take me through several questions. Were my lungs burning? Yes. Was my throat sore? Yes. Anywhere else causing pain? Yes. Left jaw, left shoulder blade and left arm was aching.
“Are your lips swollen?”
“What?” I ran to the mirror. “No, not that I can see.”
The questions continued. Bad taste? Yes. Dizziness? Light-headed. Vision? Okay. The nurse advised that I go directly to accident and emergency: “I think you need to be checked out,” she said, “just to make sure.”
“Is it because of the cloud?” I asked.
“We need to establish that,” she replied. “It could be anything. That’s why you need to go to hospital. If you get worse or feel you are losing conciousness you need to call 999 for an ambulance.”
“If I’m unconscious I’m not going to be able to phone an ambulance. Have you had many complaints like this this morning?”
“Personally you’re my first. But I think there have been more, yes.”
“In this area?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir?”
I checked into A&E about 12.30, after having to pay £2.70 for parking. Never did understand that. We have come to see our dying father. That’s £2.70 please. We don’t have any money. Well, you can’t come in then, get a job.
“Next of kin?” asked the receptionist, after she had taken down my other details.
“Is it that serious?” I joked.
“No sir, it’s routine,” she didn’t laugh, or even smirk.
The waiting room was half full, some 40 people. Men, women, teenagers in hoodies, braided hair, children. Some screamed in pain, others just because they could. One elderly man was wearing a winter coat over his pale green pyjamas. His hair was cut into a bowl shape. He hobbled when he moved, and talked to himself. Every 20 minutes or so he would get up and accuse the receptionist of stealing his money. Then he demanded money from them, said he wanted it for booze. They had already thrown him out several times.
Two cops with an injured prisoner walked in and the man sat down again. But it struck me, this man obviously needed some kind of help. They just treated him like a criminal, or worse, a subhuman. Something lower than themselves. I noticed several of the receptionists wore a Christian cross around their necks.
A doctor called me in after about 45-minutes. I was called in ahead of many others. He began asking me the same questions the receptionist and the nurse on the phone had. Then he asked some more. His assistant put a clip on my finger and it lit up red, and he took my blood pressure.
The moment I mentioned my symptoms he ran off, leaving his assistant, a student nurse in front of me.
“You had many respiratory problems in here recently,” I asked, “say in the last few days?”
“Some,” he replied, “but you are my first.”
“How many?” I pushed.
He looked around: “Lots,” he finally said.
“And you don’t find that strange after a huge toxic clouds flies right across the area?”
He didn’t answer.
The doctor came back and told me to go back to the waiting room. I sat and watched the news. No inquiry into the 7/7 bombings. What a surprise. Nevermind the many unanswered questions. Cancelled trains, diverted buses, mock terror attacks, CIA managers, downgraded terror alerts, downgraded surveillance, floor plates that blow upwards into the carriage, removing 6,000 Metropolitan police officers to police the G8 summit in Gleneagles.
I waited another 30-minutes. Then the doctor called me. He took my temperature, looked in my ears and throat, said “hmm” a few times, and questioned me. He asked me when it started. This morning I told him. He asked what I was doing yesterday.
“This is about the cloud,” I stated. “How many people you had in with these symptoms?”
“You’re my first. But I think there has been a few.”
“A lot?”
“Some. But not as many as Hillingdon or Hemel Hempstead.” He went on to tell me there had been many complaints. Respiratory, headaches, distorted vision, muscular pains: “Some more serious,” he said. “So, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a journalist.”
He went silent.
The doctor’s advice for me was to buy some cough mixture and rest. He said my lungs were definitely irritated by something, but did not say what, said it would hurt for a few days, but I would be okay. I asked him about the long-term effects of whatever it was that affected me. He didn’t answer.
As I left the ward the old drunk man was surrounded by social workers, nurses and cops. He was taking off his trousers.
Answer: toxic clouds from burning fuel depots are real bad for you.
I woke suddenly. Something was wrong I was certain the moment my eyes sprang open. But what? I breathed in heavy. Nothing happened. I tried a second time. Still nothing. I bolted out of bed and ran into the kitchen. My chest burned. It felt constricted. My throat was itching and raw. I gulped on a glass of water, breathed and then coughed thick green and black phlegm from the bottom of my lungs.
This continued for the next half-hour. I cleaned my teeth, trying to get rid of the awful taste in my mouth. Still more lung butter came up. I could smell burning deep inside my nostrils. The taste in my mouth reminded me of the time I tried to siphon petrol from the car for a lawn mower. I coughed to the point of choking, my chest tightening up with every wretch, sharp pains burst under my left shoulder blade. This is not good I thought. Maybe I should quit smoking.
After a hellish morning at work, trying not to cough up all over the clients, or pass out as regular bouts of light-headedness took hold, I rang the NHS 24-hour help-line number that had been flashed up on the mainstream media reports of “safe” toxic clouds and expert discussions on whether the disaster would raise the price of petrol.
The front of my lungs, under the rib cage, felt raw, bloody, and the short sharp panic attacks of not being able to breath had not subsided. I needed some advice.
“Firstly, sit down and relax,” said the nurse on the other end of the phone.
“Relax?” I croaked. “I can’t breath properly. No oxygen and I die. You don’t need medical training to understand that.”
I told the nurse about being under the toxic cloud. The nurse went silent for a second then asked to take me through several questions. Were my lungs burning? Yes. Was my throat sore? Yes. Anywhere else causing pain? Yes. Left jaw, left shoulder blade and left arm was aching.
“Are your lips swollen?”
“What?” I ran to the mirror. “No, not that I can see.”
The questions continued. Bad taste? Yes. Dizziness? Light-headed. Vision? Okay. The nurse advised that I go directly to accident and emergency: “I think you need to be checked out,” she said, “just to make sure.”
“Is it because of the cloud?” I asked.
“We need to establish that,” she replied. “It could be anything. That’s why you need to go to hospital. If you get worse or feel you are losing conciousness you need to call 999 for an ambulance.”
“If I’m unconscious I’m not going to be able to phone an ambulance. Have you had many complaints like this this morning?”
“Personally you’re my first. But I think there have been more, yes.”
“In this area?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir?”
I checked into A&E about 12.30, after having to pay £2.70 for parking. Never did understand that. We have come to see our dying father. That’s £2.70 please. We don’t have any money. Well, you can’t come in then, get a job.
“Next of kin?” asked the receptionist, after she had taken down my other details.
“Is it that serious?” I joked.
“No sir, it’s routine,” she didn’t laugh, or even smirk.
The waiting room was half full, some 40 people. Men, women, teenagers in hoodies, braided hair, children. Some screamed in pain, others just because they could. One elderly man was wearing a winter coat over his pale green pyjamas. His hair was cut into a bowl shape. He hobbled when he moved, and talked to himself. Every 20 minutes or so he would get up and accuse the receptionist of stealing his money. Then he demanded money from them, said he wanted it for booze. They had already thrown him out several times.
Two cops with an injured prisoner walked in and the man sat down again. But it struck me, this man obviously needed some kind of help. They just treated him like a criminal, or worse, a subhuman. Something lower than themselves. I noticed several of the receptionists wore a Christian cross around their necks.
A doctor called me in after about 45-minutes. I was called in ahead of many others. He began asking me the same questions the receptionist and the nurse on the phone had. Then he asked some more. His assistant put a clip on my finger and it lit up red, and he took my blood pressure.
The moment I mentioned my symptoms he ran off, leaving his assistant, a student nurse in front of me.
“You had many respiratory problems in here recently,” I asked, “say in the last few days?”
“Some,” he replied, “but you are my first.”
“How many?” I pushed.
He looked around: “Lots,” he finally said.
“And you don’t find that strange after a huge toxic clouds flies right across the area?”
He didn’t answer.
The doctor came back and told me to go back to the waiting room. I sat and watched the news. No inquiry into the 7/7 bombings. What a surprise. Nevermind the many unanswered questions. Cancelled trains, diverted buses, mock terror attacks, CIA managers, downgraded terror alerts, downgraded surveillance, floor plates that blow upwards into the carriage, removing 6,000 Metropolitan police officers to police the G8 summit in Gleneagles.
I waited another 30-minutes. Then the doctor called me. He took my temperature, looked in my ears and throat, said “hmm” a few times, and questioned me. He asked me when it started. This morning I told him. He asked what I was doing yesterday.
“This is about the cloud,” I stated. “How many people you had in with these symptoms?”
“You’re my first. But I think there has been a few.”
“A lot?”
“Some. But not as many as Hillingdon or Hemel Hempstead.” He went on to tell me there had been many complaints. Respiratory, headaches, distorted vision, muscular pains: “Some more serious,” he said. “So, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a journalist.”
He went silent.
The doctor’s advice for me was to buy some cough mixture and rest. He said my lungs were definitely irritated by something, but did not say what, said it would hurt for a few days, but I would be okay. I asked him about the long-term effects of whatever it was that affected me. He didn’t answer.
As I left the ward the old drunk man was surrounded by social workers, nurses and cops. He was taking off his trousers.
e-mail:
Comments
Hide the following 17 comments
So?
15.12.2005 02:34
And exactly what point are you trying to make by summarising all the 7/7 conspiracy theories in the middle of this? There are perfectly rational explanations for all of those things if you're open minded enough to accept them.
Is it so hard to accept that the world is chaotic and sometimes things just happen, and that they might actually be genuine accidents rather than part of some mass conspiracy? Is it so hard to accept that four men simply took a train to London with bombs in their rucksacks?
P
Because.
15.12.2005 07:39
Doug.
Trust
15.12.2005 10:14
This is reminiscent of the US govt's advice to New Yorkers that it was OK to go back to work, and the air was "safe to breathe" immediately following the 9/11 attacks, despite the fact that there was a huge cloud of toxic dust and fumes all over the city at ground level and above.
This wasn't a matter of poor testing: the EPA simply lied, apparently at the request of the White House.
Four years have passed and they're still fucking around, and risking people's lives:
J
Stop Press! Breathing toxic smoke may be bad for you.
15.12.2005 10:45
Frequently people resist evacuation when it is very strongly recommended, preferring to stay in their own homes in times of emergency.
You had the choice to self evacuate, but chose to stay. The A&E doctor confirmed that there was no immediate threat to your health - otherwise you would have been admitted to hospital. Beyond that there is very little he can say - you might die of lung cancer in thirty years, but you will never know if this event contributed to the risk. He may well have falled silent on hearing that you are a journalist for fear of being misquoted, of of an off hand comment being taken as an official statement.
You can provide your own respiratory protection if you are afraid of future incidents - anything from a cheap dust mask to full self contained breathing apperatus (but don't use the latter without training), and by being able to protect yourself and self evacuate you will free fire brigade resources to concentrate on the more vulnerable.
RVR800
Hide this now ...
15.12.2005 11:13
... Repost - I read something like this in the indi. (except with different words) ...
... heirachical (or is that hysterical?) ...
... Indymedia is not a site for people with information, opinion, insight or interest in their world ... if you don't like it why not set up your own site, or move to Russia or something!!!
[Warning: sarcasm will get your IP address banned and is not politically correct]
Don't read the mail and express - BE the mail and express!
jackslucid
e-mail:
jackslucid@hotmail.com
jacks not very lucid at the moment
15.12.2005 11:39
The post is news, its original, its in the first person and its topical.
If you want to read tedious rehashings of the 9/11 theories you know where the relevant websites are by now.
Why don't you start your own bulletin board? - it would free up Indymedia to repost alternative news and you wouldn't have to complain about the modding.......
Hope you recover your lucididty in the near future.
Lord Mayor's Fireworks
Yeah!
15.12.2005 12:03
Still, I ain't never been lucid. Wish I could be more upstanding - like you 'proper' indymedia journalists[sic].
I will have to remain a wooly minded PC hysteric for now (oh, wait a moment ... doesn't that qualify me?)
Don't read the media - be the media (unless we stop you by making all the decisions for you).
Meet the new media same as the old media.
Pass on my regards to George Soros and the Ford foundation will you!?!
jackslucid
e-mail:
jackslucid@hotmail.com
PS
15.12.2005 12:04
jackslucid
e-mail:
jackslucid@hotmail.com
News or not?
15.12.2005 12:45
I forgot to add this was originally posted as a blog at
Is it news? You decide.
It happened. It's important, people are ill because of it and no one else is talknig about it yet, despite the BBC chasing me up yesterday on the story.
Thanks to those respected IMCers who backed me up on this. To those who have nothing but criticism, if you put as much effort into something creative as you have at slagging this article, just imagine what you could achieve.
Smash Your TV and enjoy the life you have.
On 7/7 - rational answers? Okay, lets have them. It's free to post here. And I'll gladly debate you on your evidence compared to mine, okay.
But when even the Daily Mail has the headline "What are they trying to hide?" you have to start asking some seriously intelligent questions.
Oscar Beard
Oscar Beard
wikipedia article on fire
15.12.2005 14:28
~~~
But...
15.12.2005 15:08
I want YOU to do it for me!
Waaaaaaaa!
Dear Oscar
15.12.2005 15:23
I think this article is perfectly acceptable - if not exactly the kind of thing that this site needs and should cater for.
However, I beleive, it is only still here because no one at imcuk has taken exception to it - unlike many other similar personal accounts of the way in which people live through the events called news.
I am in no way calling for it to be banned, on the contrary, I am calling for fairness in allowing others to post their own acconts in a similar manner.
Recently those with the censors pen at imcuk have come up with a new concept:
"anti-censorship trolls"
I can't think of a more barstardised turn of phrase - and one that is redolant with the kind of smug, self rightious, arrogant PC hysteria that seems to be sweeping away the concept of 'being the media'.
I am sorry that it had to be this article that I used to make this point (I kind of regret it - but only because it might have given [you] the impression that [you] were under attack)
Once again I apologise ...
... all power to you ... love also.
jackslucid
e-mail:
jackslucid@hotmail.com
...
15.12.2005 17:30
Cos it was the office Christmas party the night before? Cos there's a cold going around?
FTB
jack is still throwing his rattle out of the pram
15.12.2005 18:22
"anti-censorship trolls""
As you're clearly reading the open list on which these matters are discussed, why not post your concerns there?
And by "those with the censors pen at imcuk" you actually mean "an individual who is part of a collective, has admin rights and has put loads of work to bring jackslucid a site to moan about."
its fookin easy to moan.
It achieves what exactly?
Grow up and do something meaningful with your anger
Nanny
... ok ...
15.12.2005 19:08
I hate my mother. I hate my father. I hate my dead great-grandparents.
I write bad checks. I sleep with my dog.
Happy?
Now, can we get to the real issues?
jackslucid
e-mail:
jackslucid@hotmail.com
blame game
15.12.2005 20:29
Any yet the choice seems to be between some theory or just an accident. What happened to the concept of corporate liability ? The official story is either Texaco or Total blew up a small piece of Hemel Hempstead and endangered or damaged thousands of people, and yet none of you are complaining about that. I can't find any discussion of Total or Texaco's previous record in these pages.
'No one has yet claimed responsibilty' is a phrase often trotted out on such occasions, but did Union Carbide claim responsibilty for Bhopal ?
It is in their interests to blame an unavoidable accident as they get much more insurance than if there was terrorism involved. And the police announced 'there was no evidence for terrorism' within the first hours, while the site was a fireball that no police could approach. I'm not saying that points to terrorism, but I think it indicates the corporate irresponsibility of Texaco and Total perfectly.
Danny
Same here
31.07.2006 18:11
Today i was watching the news, the top story was that a huge toxic cloud moved from liban,after those bombings, on to cyprus, after reading ur article im starting to get worried....
Larry
e-mail:
dacatunderdacouch@yahoo.com