Toxic Dust Causes Worker’s Death, Sparks Legal Fight

Marek Marzec, dying from silicosis caused by cutting quartz worktops
Marek Marzec, dying from silicosis caused by cutting quartz worktops.

United States: A worker named Marek Marzec, who is very sick with lung disease from years of cutting kitchen worktops, is suing his old employers. He has silicosis, a serious illness caused by harmful dust from cutting quartz worktops.

Marek, who is 48 and a father of three, is too weak for a lung transplant and says the working conditions were terrible. He is taking legal action to protect others who work in risky conditions like he did. His lawyers, along with other former workers, are pushing for better safety rules to prevent this from happening again.

As reported by the Daily Jang, born in Poland, Marzec has been installing various types of engineered stone in north London and Hertfordshire since 2012.

He was diagnosed with silicosis in April this year and his status has since then had a major decline.

At the moment, Marzec is being treated at the Whittington Hospital in North London under Dr. Jo Feary an occupational lung disease consultant from the Royal Brompton Hospital.

But he suffers from silicosis, a disease resulting from inhaling crystalline silica dust, and he is now in a very bad vital state and can live only weeks longer.\

A current investigation established that occupational groups such as the one to which Marzec belongs are at high risk of developing an acute type of silicosis that produces severe respiratory distress and impairment, for which lung transplant is often the only intervention possible.

Unfortunately, Marzec is now too sick for the operation and is in palliative care.

Marzec recalled that when he was in the hospital, he had to take pain killers and fight for every breath saying “they were terrible pain and could barely breathe simply for doing my job.”

“I came to the UK for a better livelihood and a desire to ensure my young daughters would be financially stable,” he said.

“Instead of that I suffered cutting quartz worktops and now can barely breathe and am in agony.”

chain I can’t tell you how mad I am that they let me work in these conditions and that my life is now only 39 years long because I am a journalist.

‘I am not alone in fearing for my life because of this deadly dust,’ she said.

“It is time for urgent action to end these risky working conditions I underwent to suffer from this terrible disease before others stones persons get affected and dies.”

Statements of Leigh Day’s legal team are that much tighter safety measures are required to halt more cases of silicosis from cutting of engineered stones, which have evidently caused death of at least another worker.