Vengeful Husband sues Ex-Wife for Secondhand Smoke IllnessWritten by Dr. Craig Donnelly
Charleston, SC 3/24/05- After 13 years of marriage, a Florida man divorces his wife and sues her, claiming his wife’s 2 to 3 pack-a-day smoking habit caused him to contract life-threatening lung cancer in Palm Beach (case id 501997CA01158XXONAN). When effects of secondhand smoke becomes so bad that a husband is willing to sue his ex-wife, a woman he once loved, people must begin to open their eyes to dangers and liabilities caused by secondhand tobacco smoke exposure.Heather Crowe is from Ottawa and has worked in restaurant business for over 40 years as a waitress. In 2002, Ottawa Citizen reported that she was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer that she claims was caused by her constant exposure to secondhand smoke as a result of her working at restaurant. Heather filed for workers compensation due to her illness hoping that this would urge lawmakers to enforce stricter codes to protect workers in hospitality industry from exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke. Currently, most state and provincial laws limit smoking areas to a small percentage of usable floor space of hospitality establishment; however, this does not guarantee workers, or patrons, are protected from harmful byproducts of secondhand smoke. Everyday, people in hospitality industry go to work and are exposed to significant amounts of secondhand smoke. Restaurant servers, bartenders, and even hotel employees are forced to stifle their concerns about having to work while being exposed to a patron’s secondhand smoke for fear of losing their jobs. Secondhand cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 potential poisons and most are chemicals not even studied by FDA. Of those 4,000 toxic chemicals, 69 are KNOWN cancer causing agents. A nonsmoker who works in a smoking environment has a 26% increased risk of developing lung cancer. Additionally, secondhand smoke exposure has been linked to esophageal, throat, and mouth cancer and in United States alone, over 65,000 deaths a year are linked to secondhand smoke related illnesses. Due to this dramatic rise in secondhand smoke related deaths (3,000 deaths just ten years ago) more and more hospitality industry employers are being held liable for these sicknesses, losing millions of dollars as a result of these lawsuits.
| | Bring Back Your Independence through the help of a Power Wheel Chair!Written by Maricon Williams
Life is annoying when you are precluded from doing things that you want to do. It hits you hard when you can see other people enjoying things that can also be enjoyed by you but chance of doing it was already withheld. It is also miserable when you depend too much on other people. At back of your mind you sense helplessness and vulnerability. These are mixed emotions that persons confined in a wheel chair feel. Now, they can be freed from misery and apprehensions and live an equally normal life. With help of power wheel chairs, a new life can work loose with them. Now they can participate in any activity they desire. They can go wherever they wanted to. They can have greatest level of independence that they long for. The advantages of a power wheel chair above traditional manual chairs are plentiful and somewhat straightforward. The most noticeable, of course, being their battery-power which enables occupant to move under their own preference. By itself, this is a marked enhancement over conventional models for those lacking arm strength to wheel themselves up a ramp. The adding of self-contained batteries to each chair, improved their mobility and made more specialized chairs possible. Chairs can now be modified for a number of new and precise applications. Today, there are custom chairs which have ability to ascend stairs. For those suffering from severe paralysis, there are chairs that are operated with breath control. It is most recent breakthrough that makes wheel chairs easier to control.
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