A 56-year-old state employee at Columbus, Ohio’s James A. Rhodes State Office Tower has been hospitalized with Legionnaires’ disease, a severe form of pneumonia, referred to as legionellosis, that can be deadly when it strikes people who are older than 50, are smokers, or have underlying medical conditions such as COPD, other respiratory issues, or compromised immune systems.
According to The Columbus Dispatch, the woman, a Fairfield County resident, was hospitalized over a week ago with Legionnaires disease. The Department of Administrative Services (DAS) subsequently sent an email to its employees on Friday, January 29th, asking them not to use the building’s hot water over the weekend while the hot water system was cleaned and chlorinated.1 In a later email to building employees, DAS Director Robert Blair explained that “Out of an abundance of caution, DAS conducted a test for Legionella last week. While those results have not come back yet, DAS proactively chlorinated the hot water system over this past weekend.”2. Blair stated that the system was tested for Legionella pneumonia bacteria both before and after the water treatment; results are still forthcoming.
Rhodes Tower, 41 stories high and housing a workforce of 4,000 personnel, has a history of Legionella contamination. In June of 2015 its water was shut off after state officials identified Legionella in three of six samples taken from its system. No Legionnaires’ disease cases among employees were reported to the Ohio Department of Health at that time.
In response to this incident, Ohio Civil Services Employees Association (OCSEA) has now filed a grievance against Ohio’s Department of Administrative Services for failing to inform workers earlier that an employee had contracted Legionnaires’ Disease. Union president Chris Mabe has stated that, since Legionella has been detected on different occasions in Rhodes Tower since 2014, then management should have alerted its workers to the potential threat earlier.3
It is still unclear whether last week’s testing and cleaning / hyper-chlorination of the building for Legionella was prompted by the report of this actual case of Legionnaires’ disease, or whether it was part of a scheduled maintenance program.
- Ludlow, Randy. “Rhodes Tower worker contracts Legionnaires’ disease.” The Columbus Dispatch. Web. 3 Feb. 2016 [date cited: 5 Feb. 2016].
- Ludlow, Randy. “No Legionella at Rhodes Tower? Test results aren’t back yet.” The Columbus Dispatch. Web. 4 Feb. 2016 [date cited: 5 Feb. 2016].
- Somerville, Bryant. “Union Takes Action After Worker Contracts Legionnaires.” WNBS-10TV. Web. 4 Feb. 2016 [date cited: 5 Feb. 2016].