20 years Old Asbestos Exposure Leads to Death of IT worker
by CCUK Support
Roy Williams, from Ammanford in Carmarthenshire, had three sons – all of whom followed in his footsteps into the IT industry. Jason, his middle boy, had no idea this job might ultimately end his life. However, 20 years later and then a father of two teenagers he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a form of cancer linked to asbestos exposure.
Tragically, Jason died only six months later at just 45 years-old. In a recent interview with the BBC his father, Roy Williams, is urging bosses in the private and public sectors to remove asbestos from buildings immediately. “It’s a death sentence to anybody. All it takes is one breath at the wrong time in the wrong place.”, said Mr Williams, “It’s aggressive, very aggressive. And there is no cure, and there’s no treatment. It’s a death sentence. My primary aim is to get the asbestos out of those buildings, so that families like mine don’t go through anything like this.”
During the interview with the BBC Mr Williams went on to say, “He did well in school, did everything that was expected of him academically,” After graduating from university, Jason began his career in IT. One of his first jobs, as a graduate in his early 20s, was at the steelworks in Port Talbot – “he loved every minute of it.”
However, during this time, while running cables and fitting computers, it is believed he was exposed to asbestos. At the time Jason didn’t know about the danger he had been exposed to.
Jason went on to have a wife and two children and was eventually headhunted by a global IT firm.
“All the hard work he’d done, started to bear fruit,” said Roy. It was around this time, in his mid-40s, that he became ill, spending the day of his 45th birthday in hospital. In March 2019 Jason was diagnosed with mesothelioma.
“They took a biopsy…. a fortnight later, he and I went in to see the consultant, and the consultant told him to his face that he’d been exposed to asbestos – mesothelioma,” explained Mr Williams. “We couldn’t even pronounce it. We didn’t even know what it meant. And to be fair, the consultant didn’t know. Due to this he turned to my son and he said, ‘If you want to really know all about it, Google it.”
Every year up to 5000 people die from an asbestos-related illness, about half of those die of mesothelioma. By educating our customers on the dangers of such diseases we hope to spread valuable knowledge ultimately reducing the amount of deaths, like Jason’s, still being seen in the UK.
You can find out more details on the above story in the following article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59491185
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