WITH NO FANGS, no claws, no terrifying roar, mold is the most alien, contradictory "beast" of prey. It can't give chase, yet the spongy, often shapeless fungus hunts everywhere. Outwardly, it shows no hunger, yet its appetite is wide-ranging, occasionally sophisticated and always voracious. And although no public health official would ever sound the alarm on roaming, feral mold colonies, eyewitnesses to its attacks say some strains can ravage human flesh like a school of hungry piranha.
Nearly as old and as elemental as the Earth itself, mold has learned to survive for years in cramped, dark spaces without a meal. Eventually, either water or air (its chief environmental chauffeurs) will be along. Then, it's a quick ride back to the land of the living. And time to feed.
Hardly a finicky eater, mold feasts on civilized man's endless, if sporadic, smorgasbord of cellulose building materials and his weakness for immediate, reliable water sources -- major food supplies for many strains of fungus.
Of the thousands of mold species, two types, Aspergillus and Stachybotrys, have learned the lessons of evolution better than most, emerging as highly calibrated killing machines. Weaponized, these two molds have been used to devastating effect in biological attacks waged by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the former Soviet Union. With Stachybotrys' tendency to spew out toxins (which usually kill its host) in an effort to guard its prey from other parasites and Aspergillus' ability to hang on and infect a human body as robustly as almost no other fungi on the planet, these two toxic molds, while useful in a number of industrial and military processes, routinely prove deadly.
Often clinging to the darkness just inside walls or behind ceiling tiles, this duo also lurks silently, almost invisibly, near sewage pipes and air vents. Then, with the first blast of conditioned air or the drip of a leaky roof, the hunt is on. And what looked like just a scattering of dust along an attic crawlspace or in a hidden corner can shape shift in days into a juicy, jiggling hunk of unknowable darkness. As water triggers rapid growth, the host colony eats its fill of whatever lies beneath its newly teeming biomass. Within hours of reanimation, its reproductive factories launch millions of spores into the air, or send them off to ply the canals of trickling water leakage. Whether these spores land on drywall or human flesh matters not. Each landing zone is a banquet, and a potential home base for the newborn spores which quickly and covertly coalesce into colonies of their own.
And so it was five years ago as local health inspector Dan Pauluk sat at his desk at the Southern Nevada Health District, at first not knowing that death was cascading down on him from on high. Ironically, as he spent most days working to improve the safety of schools and other public buildings, the ceiling above and the air around him teemed with the microscopic forces invading his body. Surely, say doctors, as the spores drifted through the air and down into Dan's lungs, he felt nothing, at first. Until the mold began to eat him alive.
A LIFE INTERRUPTED
Almost a year has passed since Dan died July 17, at the age of 57, succumbing to the colonies of Aspergillus and Stachybotrys gnawing through his organs and soft tissues. Memories of the man and his infected, pain-ridden body still writhe in the hearts and minds of his grieving widow, Wendy, and his shattered children. But so does a boiling anger, a rage, they say, about a death that should have been prevented by his employers at the Southern Nevada Health District. That fury has resulted in Wendy suing the health district in district court, a case that'll soon head back before a judge after a two-month delay.
The lawsuit, filed here in December, came five months to the day after Dan's death. Wendy alleges that health officials for years covered up a persistent mold infestation at the district's Shadow Lane headquarters, where Dan worked the last few years of his life, and intimidated district employees who wanted to blow the whistle. While she's suing the district to recoup the hundreds of thousands of dollars she says she spent to keep her husband alive, as well as to recover a workers' compensation claim which the district still won't honor, Wendy says Dan's former life stands in stark contrast to district officials who she maintains have lied about the dangers of mold both to her family and to the untold thousands of local parents and children who flock to the health district each year for medical care. Although the numbers of infections and deaths similar to Dan's are so small that neither federal nor state officials track the numbers, that doesn't diminish the hell she says her late husband endured.
"This was a guy who couldn't tell a lie to save his soul. Very responsible, but also very real. But they [Southern Nevada Health District] don't care, and people are still getting infected. The truth has to be revealed," says Wendy.
Southern Nevada Health District officials wouldn't comment on the Pauluks' ongoing lawsuit against them, but they deny allegations that they're hiding evidence about a supposed toxic mold infestation at their headquarters and that they callously "let" Dan die. In fact, mold was identified at the district's headquarters starting in 1998, but the district says its testing showed employees were not at risk. Still, the presence of mold required extensive cleanup at the district's offices.
Asked for his official response, health district attorney Peter Angulo says he doesn't like to "try his cases in the media."
Legal sources close to the case say this is one lawsuit that could make as many headlines as the current health scare at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada, which, ironically, is just down the street from the district's allegedly contaminated offices. That's cold comfort to Wendy, who hopes that, since she can't have Dan back, she can at least honor his memory with a little justice.
FAMILY MAN
For nearly 12 years, Dan, the affable family guy and conscientious employee, worked as a health inspector at the district's Henderson offices, not far from his home. Wendy remembers him as a hot-blooded romantic, doting stepfather and all-around good guy who savored life. Her husband of 17 years was, and still is, the love of her life. "We met a roller skating rink. We went to an adult night at a roller skating rink back in the Midwest where they did couples skating. From the start, we had a strong attraction," she says. After about a year of courting, the couple married. Dan, Wendy and her two children from a previous marriage, Jamie and Chrissy, set up house together. Wendy says Dan did all he could to ensure the new family gelled.
"He adopted my children as soon as we got married. He treated them as his own. Anything they needed, Dan was there," says Wendy. While she and Dan finished up their respective degrees, opportunities in Las Vegas began to open up for them both. She had a love for clinical psychology; he had a passion for public health issues, and Vegas seemed the perfect place to reinvent a stable family environment. Dan found work here, signing on with what is now called the Health District of Southern Nevada in 1988. Wendy's psychology practice began to take root. By all accounts, life was great. Dan was the dynamo helping to churn out all that joy at home. "Dan loved to laugh and have fun. He had this dry sense of humor; he had something humorous to say about almost everything. But he also had a serious side, and he is -- sorry, he was -- one of these people who's very responsible in work, in his home life and in his play," she says, pausing a handful of times to regain her composure and catch her breath.
It was a perfect scene, at least until district officials transferred Dan to their Vegas headquarters in February 2003. Until the dementia and the constant pain began. Until Dan's flesh began to ooze so much pus and infection that puddles of fluid soaked his sleeping frame each morning, ruining his bedclothes from the night before.
Until screams and cries of pain supplanted laughter and family time in the last two years of a life cut short.
INSTANT SYMPTOMS
Understandably, the Pauluk family's raw emotions still make it painful for them to discuss some facts of the case. But official court records, interviews with legal sources and public and private documents depict Dan as a man forced to toil in oppressive, potentially deadly conditions under supervisors whom Wendy's lawyers describe as "malicious." After his transfer, Dan was assigned to review plans for schools and other public buildings, ensuring they met all applicable health code requirements. It was rewarding work, but there were early signs that his new assignment meant trouble.
Within a matter of weeks, it was clear to Dan -- even clearer to Wendy and the kids -- that something was very wrong with him.
"He just lost his focus, very quickly. He seemed to have more confusion, couldn't pay attention and had trouble with cognitive thinking," says Wendy.
As a clinical psychologist, she recommended that Dan try Wellbutrin, which can improve mental focus. The pills didn't do much. His condition worsened.
"I knew he had just gone on to a new position; I thought, maybe, the new job was interfering. But the Wellbutrin seemed to help only in a minor fashion."
During the next year, Dan continued to struggle with confusion and lost mental focus, as well as chronic exhaustion. His use of sick time skyrocketed. He consulted with as many doctors as would see him.
Then, around March 2004, the reasons for Dan's phantom illness became clear, at least to the Pauluks. After reading in a local newspaper that local health officials had recently closed the Children's Oasis childcare facility because of the presence of toxic mold, Dan began to wonder whether festering mold colonies in his own office might be causing his illness. Months of research followed. So did continued doctor visits. He and other employees had seen multiple water leaks on ceiling tiles around their section of the building. Others in Dan's wing of the building had also complained of eye irritation and difficulty breathing.
Based on these symptoms, which a growing number of researchers now tie to toxic mold exposure, an infestation made sense, he told friends and family.
As his illness began to take hold, mental impairment gave way to physical pain and loss of musculoskeletal control. Some days, Dan had trouble walking. Other days, simple speech was a chore. Dan began to forget things. Like where he was, or what he was doing.
Finally, in late 2005, one local doctor finally thought he had an answer for the Pauluks. It was then that Dr. Naresh Singh found Dan's body to be infected with both Aspergillus and Stachybotrys. Multiple blood tests performed by local and national specialists (at least one of which came after Dan's death) confirmed Singh's assessment.
Dan's flesh was riddled with mold colonies, which were still growing, constantly infused (Dan and his doctor believed) with fresh spores growing in his health district office. With constant darkness and an endless supply of water and nutrient-rich bodily fluids, Dan's internal tissues were the ideal breeding ground for the billions of mold spores now circulating in his system. As the spores gathered into colonies to feed on Dan's flesh, time was running out. Something had to be done. Dan had to get out of there.
"In other situations, when this has become a problem, the employer has usually complied, sometimes reluctantly, but they've complied, and relocated the patient to another workplace," Singh told one reporter who first covered Dan's case back in 2006.
But not health district officials. Court documents and Pauluk family members say they shrugged off his requests, even becoming enraged as the man from Henderson tried to save his own life by asking repeatedly for transfers - requests backed by official letters from his doctors.
However, earlier press coverage reports that health district officials knew about their mold problem - and how it was harming employees. "Dan is the third current active employee with this specific diagnosis ..." reads one internal district e-mail, sent in September 2005 from the district's human resources office. An even earlier message, sent by Dan's supervisor in March 2004 reads, " ... The mold spores make Dan's assigned desk an unpleasant and unhealthful place to work. I frankly do not understand why the roof itself cannot be fixed to eliminate this problem."
On Oct. 14, 2005 -- nearly 19 months after Dan first requested a transfer -- his employers let him leave Shadow Lane and, eventually, retire early based on his medical condition.
THE END
During the next 18 months, documents show Dan's symptoms worsened at an ever-increasing clip.
Confusion and loss of bodily control expanded to even more severe exhaustion, cysts on his internal organs and skin, loss of breath and a painful, persistent rash over most of his body. The rash -- which doctors say was actually the mold inside his body finally beginning to eat through his flesh -- wracked Dan with pain day and night.
"His last years of life were absolutely horrible," says Wendy. "He'd scream, he'd cry, he'd weep. Every morning before work, I'd change his dressings, then videotape him to show what had changed from the night before."
Massive, constantly oozing sores covered his body. The sour stench from Dan's sores was atrocious. His screams in the night were heartbreaking.
"He got worse very quickly. He'd get new sores, new breakouts. These sores would drain and 'weep' a fluid that stank. The fluid would [soak] the bed sheets. Sometimes, Dan would be stuck to the bed, and we couldn't get him off of it. He ruined all of his clothes. I had to throw away two beds, including a $4,000 Sleep Number bed," she says.
Singh also expressed shock that health district supervisors didn't transfer Dan back in 2004, after his first request.
"It was kind of a callous, uncaring mentality. Having mold and having a problem in the building should be of big concern, so I'm saddened that that was not perceived by them," he told reporters.
And then, more than four years after the mold spores first entered his body, Dan succumbed. He died at home on July 17, 2007, surrounded by family. His wife at his side. Wendy says he went peacefully. An autopsy she paid for came back with Dan's official cause of death: mixed mold mycotoxicosis, or poisoning from a blend of toxic mold.
TRAPPED IN THE OFFICE
Perhaps more shocking than the fact that his supervisors refused to grant Dan a transfer from their Shadow Lane offices is that, by the time he retired in late 2005, documents show that health officials had known of a mold problem there since at least 1998.
In their defense, district officials point to a series of toxicology studies from 2005, 2006 and 2007 that, they say, prove employees on Shadow Lane were never at risk from the Aspergillus and Stachybotrys repeatedly found in their Shadow Lane offices.
"There is a report that some of these types of mold spores were identified in 2005 and 2006, but the 2005 results were not in any different levels than was found in outside air in Las Vegas, while the 2006 report suggested that type of mold was not airborne, but limited to a small surface area and was consistent with a roof leak and deemed not unusual," says district spokeswoman Stephanie Bethel.
Of the four studies cited by Bethel, three report mold in the health district's Shadow Lane offices, but at levels significantly lower than those found in outside, ambient air. At least one study, conducted Dec. 13, 2006, found strains of both Aspergillus and Stachybotrys, but not at levels, she says, that would normally pose a human health risk.
But at least six additional environmental studies from private firms, government teams and UNLV microbiologists (who, coincidentally, hold a patent for developing high-tech methods of detecting Aspergillus and Stachybotrys) tell another story.
As early as October 1998, according to documents obtained by CityLife, UNLV scientists had found Stachybotrys on some of the building's ceiling tile during and after renovation work on the building. But they found no airborne spores.
Officials with the health district insist that in-house maintenance crews regularly clean the Shadow Lane facility, replace air filters and "remove or clean any areas that could pose a legitimate health hazard to ... employees or the public."
That fall, after repeated employee complaints of illness and Sick Building Syndrome, another firm went inside the Shadow Lane offices to look for mold. Again, inspectors found Stachybotrys infusing ceiling tiles - this time, alongside fresh Aspergillus spores. According to these same documents, inspectors were so concerned about the mold at Shadow Lane, they summoned a so-called remediation crew to the site.
"We set up full isolation and decon[tamination] chambers ... we removed and double bagged all suspected [materials] and left the isolation barriers up for the [then] Clark County Health Department maintenance crew to install new drywall," writes John Terranova, president of Terra Nova Inc., the Vegas-based environmental firm that found the toxic mold a second time.
No matter how often crews cleaned up the mold, however, fresh colonies seemed to have little trouble growing in the Shadow Lane offices. In the ensuing years, additional inspection teams at Shadow Lane found still more toxic mold there.
In mid-March 2003, documents show UNLV microbiologists descended on Shadow Lane to again hunt for Stachybotrys. They found it in the same hallway where Dan had begun working a month earlier.
Although UNLV scientists prepared no final written report for health officials at the time, an internal UNLV document states that the biologists did call district personnel, urging them to decontaminate the area.
Further, court documents allege that, in May and August of 2004, ceiling tiles and air-conditioning vents at the Shadow Lane offices tested positive for both Stachybotrys and Aspergillus. Both molds were found less than 20 feet from Dan's desk.
PAPER TRAIL Before he died, Dan kept the kinds of immaculate records that have helped form the legal backbone of Wendy's claim against the health district. From copious hand-written notes on clashes with health district officials to homemade blueprints of district headquarters (and detailed notes on where inspectors found mold living in those same Shadow Lane offices), Dan's homework speaks from beyond the grave.
One of the most interesting items? A list of more than a dozen current and former health district employees (according to Wendy and family friends who've reviewed the items with CityLife) who also either got sick or succumbed to catastrophic illnesses while working at Shadow Lane. None of those employees would speak on the record to CityLife.
If the court decides in her favor during her upcoming lawsuit, Wendy says the money will help pay for Dan's still outstanding medical bills, now in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But a ruling for Dan would also, strangely, redeem his suffering -- and might prevent others from living the nightmare the Pauluks endured for more than four years.
She's not doing this for the cash, she says. She's going after the health district for the public good -- and because it's what Dan wanted.
"On his deathbed, Dan said, 'Wendy, please follow through with this lawsuit and stop [what's] going on in the health district.' That was his dying wish. Dan was a very honest guy, and he always did what was right. That's why he got in trouble," she says.
If she loses the lawsuit, it won't really matter. By taking the district to court, Wendy says she's following the moral example set for her by the greatest man she's ever known. By going to court, she feels she's still able to take care of Dan, of his memory. Dan would have done the same for her, she says.
"He was always so concerned about everyone else. He always wanted to know how everyone else was doing. He took the focus off of himself and put it on other people, even to his dying day. That's just the kind of guy he was."
http://www.lvcitylife.com/articles/2008/04/17/news/local_news/iq_20954359.p
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