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Posted: Monday, 10 August 2009 2:44PM
CTA worker dies of Legionnaires' Disease
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CHICAGO (CBS) -- A CTA worker has now died following hospitalization for Legionnaire's Disease.
The DuPage County coroner's office confirms that Robert Pierce, 37, died on Saturday. Pierce had been in an induced coma since contracting the rare disease two weeks ago.
As CBS 2 reported exclusively, Pierce had been working with another CTA electrician on an 'L' train car washing machine in a CTA rail yard near Midway Airport when a blast of stagnant water struck him in the nose, mouth and face. The next day Pierce became very ill with an extremely high fever.
To keep its buses and trains passenger-ready, CTA vehicles pass through high-power washers, where health officials say the bacterium that causes Legionnaire's Disease could grow.
CTA officials said Monday that no other employees had shown signs of Legionnaire's Disease, and, spokeswoman Noelle Gaffney said, "There is no evidence that the illness was contracted at CTA."
In CBS 2's first report, the CTA said it has alerted 800 workers of the potential for contracting the disease.
Sources told CBS2 the likely culprit for the disease was the train washing machine, which CTA shut down, along with a number of other similar devices, pending an investigation.
Afterward, employees received another letter saying "while there was nothing to indicate that the disease was contracted at a CTA location and, in fact, the Dept. of Health said that the CTA did not need to take any action, the CTA decided to proactively hire an outside environmental firm to test and clean the equipment in question," Gaffney said.
Will County health officials also are investigating, owing to Pierce's Will County home address.
CBS 2 Political Producer Ed Marshall contributed to this report.
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