Our law firm is representing people who contracted Legionnaires’ disease in an outbreak of illnesses linked to the Illinois Veterans Home in Quincy. You can submit the form below to find out if you are entitled to compensation. If your loved one died, you may have a wrongful death claim. Attorneys Fred Pritzker and Eric Hageman are our lead lawyers for these cases.
There are now over 50 people sickened in the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak linked to contaminated water at the Illinois Veterans Home in Quincy, according to news reports. Of those, 12 did not survive the severe pneumonia that is characteristic of the illness. Eleven of the people who died were residents of the Veterans Home, and one was a resident of Quincy.
The last hospitalization was on August 31, 2015, and the last death occurred on September 1. Our thoughts are with those sickened and the families of those who were killed by the tainted water.
Legionnaires’ disease lawsuits are important because they provide families access to information that would not otherwise be available. This information and your lawyer’s independent investigation and analysis can help determine how water got contaminated and why nothing was done about it until people got sick and died.
Every Legionnaires’ disease outbreak is caused by breathing in water mist containing Legionella bacteria. In this outbreak, there is no doubt that the contaminated water was in the Illinois Veterans Home-Quincy. Three things need to happen to prevent further illness:
- Testing needs to be done to determine what areas of the water system are contaminated, which has been done, and health officials are waiting for results, according to a State of Illinois press release;
- The water system needs to be cleaned and disinfected, which is generally part of the remediation measures undertaken by implicated building owners;
- As briefly discussed above, the survivors and the families of those who lost their lives need to take legal action to find answers, get compensation and send a message that having contaminated water in a building housing elderly people (or anyone) is not acceptable.
“Standards for the prevention of Legionella bacterial in building water and HVAC systems have existed for several years in both Europe and the United States. Nursing homes have a very vulnerable population and their owners and managers need to understand the crucial, but simple steps to prevention.”