I represent people sickened by water in the United States. Dangerous pathogens in water are not only a third-world problem.
E. coli in Well Water Causes Kidney Injury
While we like to think of well water as pure, that is not always the case. For well water to be safe, the well must be constructed properly. Oftentimes, older wells do not meet these simple standards.
We represented a young child who contracted an E.coli illness from a farmhouse well. The well was not constructed soundly enough to prevent surface runoff, contaminated with cattle dung, from entering the well. E. coli bacteria in the dung contaminated the well water. Unfortunately for the girl, she suffered hemolytic uremic syndrome, which caused a serious kidney injury. She required several days of dialysis, from which she will never fully recover.
Legionella Causes Severe Pneumonia
Likewise, hotels and even hospitals can have a compromised water supply if not maintained properly. The water can get contaminated with Legionella bacteria, which cause Legionnaires’ disease, a severe form of pneumonia. We have represented multiple victims of Legionnaire’s outbreaks where the source was hospital water, typically water vapor inhaled from a shower or hot bath. One of these persons entered the hospital for leukemia treatment, only to contract an equally deadly disease from poor maintenance of the hospital water system. This client recovered from the Legionella pneumonia, but many do not.
We recently won a case where a woman developed Legionnaires’ disease after staying at a hotel. Legionella bacteria with the same genetic fingerprint as the strain that killed our client’s wife was found in water samples taken from the hotel.