MONTREAL—A coroner's inquest into last summer's deadly outbreak of Legionnaire's Disease in Quebec City got underway Tuesday. Over 180 became sick and 14 died in the spate of cases.
Some family members of those who died because of the outbreak of major lung infections were furious on Tuesday, demanding answers. The illness often strikes the most vulnerable.
“It’s not because someone has heart problems, is asthmatic or obese, that they have more of a right to die than someone who is healthy. This was criminal negligence and I really want that to be said,” said one emotional woman at the inquiry.
“Someone didn’t do their job right and someone didn’t clean up their mess. Those people will need to pay.”
A rooftop cooling tower in the city’s historically blue-collar St-Roch neighbourhood was found to be the culprit. As of May 12, all buildings with cooling towers have been registered with the provincial government and must follow a maintenance schedule.
The inquest is expected to last six days. Over a dozen lawyers were present on Tuesday morning, a number of them were mulling a class action lawsuit.
They’re asking how a preventable illness could hit Quebec City for the third time since 1996.
“Clearly we have a lot of questions about what happened so we cannot express any kind of satisfaction,” said Jean-Pierre Menard, lawyer for the eight of the victims’ families.
Questions for the experts include why it took two months to locate the source of the bacteria and why proper cleaning procedures were not followed in the cooling towers.
Legionnaires may at first seem like basic pneumonia, but doctors knew something was wrong, said Louis Couture of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire du Quebec.
"The level of vigilance was increased when we saw that the number of pneumonia cases was increasing,” he said.
Doctors told the inquest the disease causes its victims to spit blood and attacks the lungs, heart and kidneys
Menard said it's a cautionary tale for all cities
“Big cities, smaller cities, nobody knows and it can happen next week in Montreal,” he said.
New cleaning rules going into effect May 12 in an effort to prevent any future cases of the disease this coming summer.
