Gulf Oil Disaster: Oil and Illness Looms For Coastal Residents

The Jaws Syndrome; Life Imitates Art On The Gulf Coast; The Crime of the Century Pt II by Jerry Cope

" I am in my hut which is small ... I have no where else to breathe and (the air) knocks me out. The lifeguards come and get me. They say you need to get the fire department over here... Look guys just go away let me get some fresh air. So they take me to try and find some fresh air. We can't find fresh air! We can't find a spot of fresh air for me to go anywhere in the beach.

...They (the emergency services) come over and I am 158 over 100 blood pressure, I am normally 120 over 100, they are like you have to go to the hospital right now. My boss shows up and he takes me to the workman's comp doctor. And the workman's comp doctor says you realize we all live in Gulf Shores and if we report you got sick from the fumes that we will create a problem and that would not be a good situation to have.

You can't just say you got sick from the fumes. And I was like, I did, I am giving you the knife that stabbed me. The fumes were what made me sick. And he was like yeah but that would cause a problem for the City.

...After talking with Riki Ott who is one of the marine biologists from the Exxon/Valdez she said one of the hardest things for people to realize is that they are telling us that they don't know the long-term effects of these chemicals when in fact they do know the long-term effects and that's the bull**** of what is gong on here.

The real long term effects are in the autopsies, the autopsies of the people who got sick. The people who died had lesions on their brains, the same lesions on their brains that the dolphins had. So there is such thing as long term effect to be proven outside of just the lung behavior.

This is my story but the story that ***** me off is that they are not stopping people from going in the water. This happened to me but it is going to happen to so many other people." - Former Gulf Shores Beach Supervisor/Head of Security Beach Ambassador Robyn Hill

Read the rest of this stunning investigative report by Jerry Cope here.

See more on the health hazards that potentially threaten millions of Gulf Coast residents here.