NEW YORK (WCBS) — An attorney representing a New York City woman whose husband just died from Legionnaires’ disease is planning to take legal action.
Robert Goldstein and four other people connected to the cluster on the Upper East Side have died.
Ida and Robert Goldstein would have celebrated 50 years of marriage in August, but Ida Goldstein says on Friday, Legionnaires’ took the love of her life.
“It’s something you don’t see, an invisible monster, a vapour that just went into his lungs and just took him away from me,” she said.
She says, before that, the 88-year-old retired businessman and Air Force veteran was in good health.
“He got sick very quickly, and he kept declining every single day in the hospital,” she said.
According to her attorney, the Goldsteins’ Upper East Side building tested negative for Legionella bacteria, but once the city determines the source of the outbreak, he plans to sue.
“The intended action will target the owner of an Upper East Side building who failed to properly maintain its rooftop cooling tower,” attorney Ronald Katter said.
As of Tuesday, there have been 82 cases, including five deaths, linked to the Upper East Side cluster.
Health officials say no new cases have been identified since July 15, leading them to believe the source of exposure to the bacteria has likely been eliminated.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin said.
Menin is calling for greater transparency from the city Department of Health.
At a news conference Tuesday, she announced the council is introducing a new legislative package to strengthen public education, require a hotline for better communication, and push the city to take a more proactive approach.
“Once the health department had indicated to us that they had identified the epicenter, why not start proactively disinfecting, several weeks ago, those towers, which presumably could have prevented many of these cases?” Menin said.
Menin also announced an oversight hearing on the cluster planned for September.
The DOH argues it has been proactive.
A department spokesperson said in a statement:
“The NYC Health Department has responded rapidly and aggressively to this to this Legionnaires’ cluster on the Upper East. In the past, city protocol has been to begin an investigation after three cases have been confirmed in a tight area and time frame. The NYC Health Department did not wait for that. With only two confirmed cases, we launched our investigation and directed every building with an initial positive test result to immediately clen and disinfect its cooling tower. These actions have saved lives. We’ve also been holding regular town halls, elected briefings, press briefings, and updating the public daily. We believe that through our aggressive strategy of testing and remediation we have eliminated the source of exposure. We will learn more as our investigation unfolds and look forward to updating our existing policies and procedures to preventing future clusters. For now, our minds are focused on identifying a source and holding accountable anyone found out of compliance with local laws.”
The next step is DNA testing between the towers and patients to ultimately track down the source.
Jenna DeAngelis, CNN
