Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2004 | 11:03 a.m.
The Clark County Health District is contacting 11 relatives of a Las Vegas teen who suffered acute mercury poisoning, including several who during holiday visits slept on the floor and may have inhaled vapors from particles embedded in the carpet.
Daniel Maxson, an environmental health supervisor for the district, said the relatives, several from Southern California, stayed several days in the home in the 1400 block of Saylor Way during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
Also during that period a friend of Michael Coleman, 17, who is at Sunrise Hospital's intensive care unit in stable condition this morning, came into contact with the mercury at the home near Jones Boulevard and Vegas Drive. That child lives in the neighborhood and is home schooled, Maxson said.
"We still do not believe there is a widespread problem, but we are contacting people who came in contact with the mercury vapors to tell them to get tested, and we will follow up on those tests to provide that information to the Environmental Protection Agency," Maxson said.
The county began making the calls after EPA cleanup crews, wearing decontamination suits, entered the sealed home Monday and recovered phone lists with the names of relatives who visited during the holidays.
Maxson said it is unlikely that anyone who came in contact with those relatives or the neighborhood boy will suffer mercury poisoning because "it is an inhalation issue."
However, he noted that when relatives brought Coleman to the hospital Saturday, their clothing was contaminated with mercury, forcing hospital personnel to take their shoes and clothes and give them hospital scrubs to wear home. No one else has yet tested positive for mercury poisoning, Maxson said.
Maxson said today he is going to meet with officials from Western High School, where Coleman is a sophomore, and at Paul E. Culley Elementary School near the home "to make sure we haven't missed anyone who may have been in the home."
The EPA was to continue its assessment today for cleanup of the home where potentially deadly mercury vapor levels have been recorded at 10 to 100 times higher than acceptable standards, EPA spokesman Mark Merchant said.
So far the agency has found tiny particles of mercury embedded in the carpet throughout the home and in concrete walkways in the backyard. Also, mercury levels in the family's car were 30 times greater than acceptable standards, the EPA said.
Merchant said no estimated cost of the cleanup has been determined by his agency.
"It is just too soon to tell," Merchant said, noting that the money for the cleanup will come from the Superfund budget's emergency response funds.
Those funds allow the EPA to spend as much as $200,000 for an initial response at a single site and no more than $2 million at one site in a year.
"Right now the cost of the cleanup is the least of our worries," Merchant said.
Merchant said if the cleanup takes considerable time, the EPA also will foot the bill to temporarily house the home's residents, which includes Coleman's grandmother, Lorraine Estes, who is his guardian. Currently, the American Red Cross is providing shelter for the family.
The mercury that contaminated the house was left behind in a quart bottle when his great uncle, gold miner Eddie Lattimer, moved out of his sister's Las Vegas home several months ago.
Late last year Coleman, who is an aspiring artist, found the bottle, apparently thought it was silver paint and opened it, the boy's stepfather Stephan Karr said.
Maxson said he believes Coleman did not know the object was mercury, nor that its vapors are dangerous.
Merchant said today that the EPA's criminal division will be alerted and that it will contact the Metro Police Department to determine if any laws were broken.
The EPA crew on Monday cleaned the car family's with a special vacuum designed to pick up not only mercury but also its vapors, and, with the help of a local veterinarian, were working on the ailing family dog before tackling the house.
Coleman's family members say that while they are concerned for Coleman, they also are concerned for their own health because the boy put mercury in the palms of their hands as part of a holiday demonstration.
"It happened when we came over for Thanksgiving dinner and Michael said he had something real neat to show us," Coleman's aunt, Lynn Boross, said.
"He poured a little in my hand, and at first I thought it was silver paint, then it turned into little balls. It did look neat."
Boross on Monday surrendered several of her rings to EPA officials, who will have them tested for mercury levels.
Boross said that her Uncle Lattimer at one time owned a gold mine and had used mercury in the mining operation. Boross said Lattimer was ailing from diabetes and not available to be interviewed.
Mercury, a naturally occurring element, is used in gold mining to help gold sink to the bottom of a sluice box that collects concentrated materials that later are panned.
Karr described Coleman as "a good boy who tries to stay out of trouble."
Karr, who like Boross was to undergo testing for mercury poisoning this week, said Coleman enjoys painting and drawing and probably thought he had found some paint "and started to play with it."
When his family discovered what the substance was, they disposed of it in late November, Karr said.
But by the time the mercury had been taken away from Coleman the boy had suffered long-term exposure to the vapors, officials said.
Karr and Boross said they have not shown symptoms of mercury poisoning. Such symptoms range from rashes to severe problems with the central nervous system.
In Coleman's case, he had numbness in his fingers, pain in his spine, a skin rash and he could hardly walk. The symptoms for his dog, a white Great Pyrenees/shepherd mix named Snowball who also was heavily exposed to the vapors, included a raw red nose and bloody paws.
Ann Bradley, a veterinarian with the Ark Animal Clinic, said at the scene she will not be able to determine the extent of the dog's injuries until it is shaved, decontaminated and brought to her clinic for examination.
Harry Allen, onsite coordinator for an EPA emergency response team from San Francisco, said Monday it is believed the family tossed the mercury in the trash.
He said if it went to the county landfill at Apex, it likely does not pose an immediate health hazard because it was not confined to an indoor area, where the vapors are their most lethal at room temperature.
Maxson said that most likely the mercury has been buried by mounds of trash and the vapors from it would be minor, diluted by the air and far away from public contact.
Allen said the EPA has not yet decided whether to scan for mercury at the dump.
Until the EPA and Clark County Health District find evidence that many people outside the family had contact with the mercury, Western High officials have decided not to take any action.
"Right now our concerns are that Michael gets well," Principal Pearl Morgan said.
"What happened to Michael is sad," Morgan said. "But hopefully he will be all right and this incident will send a message to parents and children to stay away from substances like this."
Neighbors did not express concern over the incident or the hazardous materials trucks in the neighborhood other than to wonder how long they would be there.
"I think things are safe," said Marjean Burns, who lives several houses away.
Karr said Coleman's grandmother, who owns the home, likely will lose all or most of its contents.
"They (EPA) will have to take out the carpets, the washing machines and all of the clothes," he said. "They will lose just about everything."
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