A hip condition will prevent him from running in a Feb. 12 Florida race to raise funds for asbestos cancer research, but that won’t stop asbestos lawyer Kevin Mulderig of the New York-based law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, P.C., from walking to show solidarity with victims battling the rare yet aggressive malignancy.
More to the point, Mulderig hopes to inspire those mesothelioma cancer patients by figuratively walking at least a mile in their shoes – shoes he for now will borrow but may end up actually owning, since he himself is at risk of developing mesothelioma.”My clients have it; I could get it,” says Mulderig, 53, a Philadelphia native now living in that city’s Bucks County suburbs. “Exposure to asbestos is the overwhelming, if not exclusive, cause of mesothelioma.”
It was while serving in the Navy during the early 1980s that Mulderig – then an ensign aboard the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga – suffered his potentially lethal brush with the toxic mineral. “Saratoga was in dry dock at the Philadelphia Navy Yard to be retrofitted with modern technology,” says Mulderig, who supervised 600 crewmen assigned to help replace pipes and ducts on the lower decks. “Like everyone from the captain on down, I had no inkling that asbestos was dangerous stuff – until the day I happened to see an asbestos-insulated vent shaft being pulled down from the overhead.”
Toxic dust flew everywhere
Shipyard civilian personnel had sealed off that work area with a protective curtain of plastic sheeting, Mulderig explains. As the vent shaft was demolished, clouds of asbestos dust billowed in all directions. The enclosure was meant to contain the dust, but failed.Says Mulderig, “The stuff spilled out over the top and escaped through flaps in the sides. It ended up all over the place. There’s no question that some of it got on me.” But four of his men got it worse. They were inside the enclosure – and wore no protective gear. That’s when Mulderig noticed three civilians also within the enclosure. They were wearing bio-hazard moonsuits. “I asked them, why the outfits? They explained it was because asbestos is dangerous and can kill you.” Mulderig says he then promptly alerted his superiors. Bio-hazard suits were unavailable, so he and the crew members were instead supplied with goggles and filtration masks.Mulderig wonders now whether those measures were adequate and if mesothelioma will be his fate. “It takes about 30 or 40 years for mesothelioma to show up after exposure to asbestos, so I guess I’ll know soon enough,” he says. “But if I do happen to develop it, there’s currently nothing that medical science can do to stop it from killing me – death can only be delayed.” Not by long, though. “Most victims die less than a year after they’re diagnosed,” he says. “That’s why on Feb. 12 we’re going down to Florida where the race will be held – it’s to raise awareness and to raise money for research that we hope leads to a cure, or at least a much longer mesothelioma life expectancy.”
