Apr 16, 2008 6:46 pm US/Central
Ex-Plant Worker Deals With New Disorder Diagnosis
AUSTIN, Minn. (WCCO) ―
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Susan Kruse needed money to raise her son, and worked at the plant for 15 years until one problem that turned up in late 2006 snowballed into a number of bigger health problems.
CBS
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State health officials were investigating neurological illnesses among workers at Quality Pork Processing in Austin, Minn.
CBS
There are new details about the mystery illness that made some pork processing plant workers sick in Minnesota.
In all, 18 workers at the Quality Pork Processors plant in Austin, Minn. got sick.
Neurologists say the illness, which affects the central nervous system, is a new disorder called progressive inflammatory neuropathy.
Tests show the workers suffer from nerve damage at the root level, closest to the spinal cord and at the farthest ends of the motor nerves, which connect with muscles.
Susan Kruse is one of the workers who have the disorder.
"There was a lot of friends that I had there, a lot of people I associated with," she recalls.
Since the day she left high school, Kruse has worked in a meat packing plant, most recently Quality Pork Processors. She needed money to raise her son, and worked at the plant for 15 years until one problem that turned up in late 2006 snowballed into a number of bigger health problems.
"Steps were, like, impossible," she recalls. "The top part of my body was saying, 'Let's go! Let's go! Let's go! But my legs felt like they were stopped. They wouldn't go."
Kruse was forced to quit her job. She said she was the second worker at the plant treated for the new neurological disorder. They were all exposed to brain tissue in the air, while butchering pig heads in the plant. Doctors think they might have gotten the disorder while breathing-in the tissue, in the form of a mist.
Kruse now has to take medicine for depression and to deal with the new disorder.
"These are an everyday thing," she said, while picking up the filled bottles of medicine.
Other workers have had all sorts of health problems, ranging from inflammation of their spinal cord to tingling in their arms and legs.
She used to use a walker and braces on her legs to get around, but she doesn't need them anymore. However, she said she does need a new career.
"That's what I'm trying to do is go back to school. I'm hoping that I can find something," she said.
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