Serpo
6th January 2011, 09:35 PM
Injured Panama City Gulf clean-up workers suffering grotesque human rights violations since August have vowed this week to break the silence about corporate and medical inhumane treatment they are enduring. Led by one woman, hospitalized several times, who can no longer stand alone, these workers want President Obama and the world to stand up for them, and just may have found the man to deliver their message.
Gulf Coast region people have been afraid to say anything about their inhuman treatment during this ongoing crime against humanity. They fear ruining their claims. They fear the unknown if they speak out, after having instilled in them they are to never say anything about what happened to them on the Gulf beaches according to Panama City resident and mother, Jennifer Rexford, a former Gulf clean-up worker.
Now, she says. the money and intimidation do not matter. The gruesome stories need to be told.
"I know many people are getting the same treatment. This isn't about money, anymore, she said.
"I don't want cancer."
Mrs. Rexfod, mother of has three sons including a toddler, told the writer about her continual battle against what would seem to most people, insurmountable challenges, especially since without her right to health care, she feels too sick to get out of bed.
"I don't feel right. I want to get up and do what I need to do, but I feel like I can't get out of bed."
Mrs. Rexford says she is only one of many people she knows who are literally battling to survive painful sores plus painful corporate personnel and medical staff involved in the Gulf Operation.
Plant Performance Services
When Mrs. Rexford was hired as a Gulf clean-up worker, she, along with new work-mates, were assured protection from the carcinogenic fall-out that the April 20 explosion was spreading onto Florida's beaches.
"P2S said we'd be safe. They said we would not be touching tarballs," she said.
P2S, Plant Performance Services, the company overseeing clean-up workers, would suddenly one day disappear, soon after one of the greatest inhumane atrocities had occurred.
According to Plant Performance Services' website:
"P2S is a leading provider of specialty and construction services to domestic industrial facilities, particularly in the oil & gas, refining, chemicals, petrochemicals, and power generation industries. P2S currently operates out of 14 locations and a large number of project sites throughout North America, with as many as 5,000 employees during peak staffing periods."
P2S is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fluor Corporation. The Fluor website documents its intensive military operation involvement.
"Under the U.S. Army Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP IV) Fluor provides the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), coalition forces, and Federal inter-agency with multi-functional logistical services during contingency operations worldwide to support U.S. national strategic objectives," reads its website.
On December 20, Fluor Corporation announced that Richard A. Hack had "joined the company's Government Group (FGG) as a senior executive overseeing logistics and contingency work for U.S. armed forces serving abroad," the company reported in a news release entitled, "Retired Army Lieutenant General Richard A. Hack Joins Fluor's Government Group."
Formerly holding a senior posiiton at KBR, Hack would be based in Fluor's Greenville, S.C., operations center according to its press release.
"Hack spent more than 33 years in the U.S. Army in a variety of leadership positions, and prior to retirement, he served as the Deputy Commanding General and Chief of Staff of the Army Materiel Command (AMC) based in Ft. Belvoir, Va. AMC is one of the largest commands in the U.S. Army, with more than 50,000 employees and activities in 42 states and in more than a dozen foreign countries. Since retiring in November 2005, Hack has held senior roles at Booz Allen Hamilton and KBR."
The FORTUNE 200 Company, Fluor is based in Irving, Texas. It "designs, builds and maintains many of the world's most challenging and complex projects" in its "global network of offices on six continents." It's website boasts of "comprehensive capabilities and world-class expertise in the fields of engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, operations, maintenance and project management."
"World-class" treatment is not what Mrs. Rexford experienced with Fluor's P2S, unless referring to world-class cruel and deliberate infliction of pain and suffering.
P2S formed in March 2003, according to its website, "when Fluor acquired several specialty operations and maintenance business groups from Philips Services Corporation. Several of these business units have been long-standing industry players in their own right, such as Piping Engineering Company (PECO), ST Piping, and ServTech."
Before joining the P2S team, Mrs. Rexford was healthy. She had been employed in Florida's seasonal tourist industry but, like many who turned to Gulf clean-up, she had found no work last summer in her regular job.
Now injured and bed-ridden most of the time, she cannot get her claim paid, despite repeatedly filing for it, and repeatedly told, "We don't have you papers. File again."
Medical inhumane treatment
Mrs. Rexford recalls all the times workmates "fell out," passed out, on the beach.
"They were brought onto the bus and told they had to stay there until the bus left at end of the day."
Instead of tents, the operation was conducted out of open-sided gazebos. People passing out on the hot and chemical ladened beaches was not unusual according to Mrs. Rexford.
The heat sizzled at 145 degrees one day. That day, a man "fell out" and was put into the bus and left unattended.
"They just kept him in the bus on his own. He had a heart attack in there and died."
It was that night, Mrs. Rexford said, that she noticed her first boil.
Working near Gulf chemicals one day, Mrs. Rexford recounts feeling like she was "on fire." She passed out.
The onsite medical assistant was soon telling her, "If you're not good enough to work in 145 degrees heat, what good are you!?"
"They refused to let us put our nets in the water. Kids were picking up tarballs and playing with them and we were not allowed to tell them to stop or to tell their parents to stop," Mrs. Rexford explained.
"They'd stand there with listening devices to see if we talked to anyone."
"We were told not to wear respirators because that would scare people. We were told not to wear gloves because that would scare people. We were told not to tell anyone about anything. You were told to keep quiet."
One day, with her military background, Mrs. Rexford said the workers were acting like they were on high alert, "as if DEFCON 3." The operation she was a part had its main base at Panama City Marina but that day, they were hurriedly told they would be rapidly be bussed five miles to where, they were told, heavy crude had washed ashore. It would be a day neither she nor any of the crew would ever forget, especially the one who fell-out.
"They bussed us to Graston State Park. There were tractors pulling hay wagons to transport us in groups. When we were on the wagon, people were told there was straight crude down there but they had no gloves for us. They took us five miles down the beach."
Not only were there no gloves or other protective gear. There was no water and no porta-potties for use during the entire day according to Mrs. Rexford.
"The sun block they gave us burned us. I don't know what it was."
"They took us five miles down the beach with nothing. They said they'd be right back."
That night, her friend was shocked when she showered. She found tar all over her, even on her buttocks.
Earlier that day on the beach, nobody ever returned to pick up all of the workers. Some had been brought back to one point on the beach where they sat waiting for the others to be brought to them, and for all of them to be bussed back to Panama City. Those anxiously awaiting were tired, hot thirsty, had not been to a bathroom all day, and were worried about what had had happened to the others not with them.
It became dark. Still, they sat, waiting, as told.
They had begun working eighteen hours earlier.
"Finally, next thing we saw was them coming over the hill, in the dark, dragging something," Mrs. Rexford said.
"Kimberly Stuart had passed out. I was told she'd been dragged back. I'm not sure and she don't remember.
"The soles of their shoes had fallen off. They put us all on the bus and took us back to Panama City."
It was Mrs. Stuart who found tar on her body when she showered. She had not remembered being dragged.
Hospital abuse
Recently warned that her painful "boils" could spread to her internal organs, Mrs. Rexford continues being prescribed antibiotics, over and over, and also Focalin.
Asked why Foclin, a drug prescribed for ADHD, Mrs. Rexford said, "Because I couldn't remember anymore."
This writer's sources have also reported widespread "confusion" among Gulf Coast resident.
Mrs. Rexford said that soon after she started working, she noticed that she "could not focus."
As for her "boils," Mrs. Rexford questions both the diagnosis and treatment.
"They say this is staph. But they [the boils] burst - and nobody else in my family has had them.
"Staph is suppose to be highly infectious. If this is really staph, by now someone else in my family would have it, especially my husband, or my 2-year old.
"They say it is not MRSA, but they hadn't been taking cultures. They just keep lancing them off. They took one culture but I haven't been able to see it."
Except for the last one, Mrs. Rexford had some of her "boils" lanced in the hospital, a painful process, as demonstrated in the Youtube video below, MRSA Draining.
Releasing pus in a boil can lead to further infection. Puncturing it at home, therefore, is usually not advised. Doctors are supposedly better equipped to lance boils. They supposedly have the necessary equipnonamement plus supposedly have an understanding of the nuances.
noname
Photos: Gulf operation "boils". Jennifer Rexford
The last time Mrs. Rexford had a boil removed in hospital, will be the last time she said.
The last sore Mrs. Rexford had "treated" was huge, the largest of the fifteen. "And it was on my breast," she explained. Knowing that, a male doctor, alone, was called in to treat her and she knew that was not right, she said. He should have had a female attendant there with them.
Before "treating" Mrs. Rexford, the doctor said, "I don't want to hear you whining and crying about the pain!"
"I'm tired of people you who don't take your antibiotics!"
Mrs. Rexford said hospital staff also accused her of not bathing enough, attributing her huge infected sores all over her body, that she'd never had until her beach clean-up work, to her personal hygiene.
The doctor did not use a lancet to remove the sore on her breast, such as used in the procedure in the Youtube video below demonstrates.
Instead, as she explained, he used a barbaric and undignified method on her.
"He used his fingers. He squeezed it with his fingers. It was huge. I screamed out in pain," she said.
When she screamed, a male nurse went and got the administrator. The puss was everywhere according to Mrs. Rexford.
"They just kept telling me, 'Calm down!'
"I'm 5'10' and given birth to three boys. You don't just tell me this is normal treatment and to just 'Calm down.'"
With help of Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors, filmmaker and journalist Jerry Cope intends to make Mrs. Rexford's wish come true while she is alive, the wish that she and her surviving former co-workers can get their stories heard by President Obama. Mrs. Rexford has arranged for her injured, sick and cruelly treated co-workers to meet Friday with Mr. Cope.
Until then, with all their might, Mrs. Rexford and her friends will not "calm down." Furthermore, they want others in this pacified nation to break their calmness, too.
She said, "People aren't listening to us."
"I have three sons. I don't want this to get worse."
After thanking Mrs. Rexford for the interview and saying goodbye, she asked, "Please. Tell them to stand up for us."
http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/gulf-clean-up-workers-vow-no-more-silence
Gulf Coast region people have been afraid to say anything about their inhuman treatment during this ongoing crime against humanity. They fear ruining their claims. They fear the unknown if they speak out, after having instilled in them they are to never say anything about what happened to them on the Gulf beaches according to Panama City resident and mother, Jennifer Rexford, a former Gulf clean-up worker.
Now, she says. the money and intimidation do not matter. The gruesome stories need to be told.
"I know many people are getting the same treatment. This isn't about money, anymore, she said.
"I don't want cancer."
Mrs. Rexfod, mother of has three sons including a toddler, told the writer about her continual battle against what would seem to most people, insurmountable challenges, especially since without her right to health care, she feels too sick to get out of bed.
"I don't feel right. I want to get up and do what I need to do, but I feel like I can't get out of bed."
Mrs. Rexford says she is only one of many people she knows who are literally battling to survive painful sores plus painful corporate personnel and medical staff involved in the Gulf Operation.
Plant Performance Services
When Mrs. Rexford was hired as a Gulf clean-up worker, she, along with new work-mates, were assured protection from the carcinogenic fall-out that the April 20 explosion was spreading onto Florida's beaches.
"P2S said we'd be safe. They said we would not be touching tarballs," she said.
P2S, Plant Performance Services, the company overseeing clean-up workers, would suddenly one day disappear, soon after one of the greatest inhumane atrocities had occurred.
According to Plant Performance Services' website:
"P2S is a leading provider of specialty and construction services to domestic industrial facilities, particularly in the oil & gas, refining, chemicals, petrochemicals, and power generation industries. P2S currently operates out of 14 locations and a large number of project sites throughout North America, with as many as 5,000 employees during peak staffing periods."
P2S is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fluor Corporation. The Fluor website documents its intensive military operation involvement.
"Under the U.S. Army Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP IV) Fluor provides the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), coalition forces, and Federal inter-agency with multi-functional logistical services during contingency operations worldwide to support U.S. national strategic objectives," reads its website.
On December 20, Fluor Corporation announced that Richard A. Hack had "joined the company's Government Group (FGG) as a senior executive overseeing logistics and contingency work for U.S. armed forces serving abroad," the company reported in a news release entitled, "Retired Army Lieutenant General Richard A. Hack Joins Fluor's Government Group."
Formerly holding a senior posiiton at KBR, Hack would be based in Fluor's Greenville, S.C., operations center according to its press release.
"Hack spent more than 33 years in the U.S. Army in a variety of leadership positions, and prior to retirement, he served as the Deputy Commanding General and Chief of Staff of the Army Materiel Command (AMC) based in Ft. Belvoir, Va. AMC is one of the largest commands in the U.S. Army, with more than 50,000 employees and activities in 42 states and in more than a dozen foreign countries. Since retiring in November 2005, Hack has held senior roles at Booz Allen Hamilton and KBR."
The FORTUNE 200 Company, Fluor is based in Irving, Texas. It "designs, builds and maintains many of the world's most challenging and complex projects" in its "global network of offices on six continents." It's website boasts of "comprehensive capabilities and world-class expertise in the fields of engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, operations, maintenance and project management."
"World-class" treatment is not what Mrs. Rexford experienced with Fluor's P2S, unless referring to world-class cruel and deliberate infliction of pain and suffering.
P2S formed in March 2003, according to its website, "when Fluor acquired several specialty operations and maintenance business groups from Philips Services Corporation. Several of these business units have been long-standing industry players in their own right, such as Piping Engineering Company (PECO), ST Piping, and ServTech."
Before joining the P2S team, Mrs. Rexford was healthy. She had been employed in Florida's seasonal tourist industry but, like many who turned to Gulf clean-up, she had found no work last summer in her regular job.
Now injured and bed-ridden most of the time, she cannot get her claim paid, despite repeatedly filing for it, and repeatedly told, "We don't have you papers. File again."
Medical inhumane treatment
Mrs. Rexford recalls all the times workmates "fell out," passed out, on the beach.
"They were brought onto the bus and told they had to stay there until the bus left at end of the day."
Instead of tents, the operation was conducted out of open-sided gazebos. People passing out on the hot and chemical ladened beaches was not unusual according to Mrs. Rexford.
The heat sizzled at 145 degrees one day. That day, a man "fell out" and was put into the bus and left unattended.
"They just kept him in the bus on his own. He had a heart attack in there and died."
It was that night, Mrs. Rexford said, that she noticed her first boil.
Working near Gulf chemicals one day, Mrs. Rexford recounts feeling like she was "on fire." She passed out.
The onsite medical assistant was soon telling her, "If you're not good enough to work in 145 degrees heat, what good are you!?"
"They refused to let us put our nets in the water. Kids were picking up tarballs and playing with them and we were not allowed to tell them to stop or to tell their parents to stop," Mrs. Rexford explained.
"They'd stand there with listening devices to see if we talked to anyone."
"We were told not to wear respirators because that would scare people. We were told not to wear gloves because that would scare people. We were told not to tell anyone about anything. You were told to keep quiet."
One day, with her military background, Mrs. Rexford said the workers were acting like they were on high alert, "as if DEFCON 3." The operation she was a part had its main base at Panama City Marina but that day, they were hurriedly told they would be rapidly be bussed five miles to where, they were told, heavy crude had washed ashore. It would be a day neither she nor any of the crew would ever forget, especially the one who fell-out.
"They bussed us to Graston State Park. There were tractors pulling hay wagons to transport us in groups. When we were on the wagon, people were told there was straight crude down there but they had no gloves for us. They took us five miles down the beach."
Not only were there no gloves or other protective gear. There was no water and no porta-potties for use during the entire day according to Mrs. Rexford.
"The sun block they gave us burned us. I don't know what it was."
"They took us five miles down the beach with nothing. They said they'd be right back."
That night, her friend was shocked when she showered. She found tar all over her, even on her buttocks.
Earlier that day on the beach, nobody ever returned to pick up all of the workers. Some had been brought back to one point on the beach where they sat waiting for the others to be brought to them, and for all of them to be bussed back to Panama City. Those anxiously awaiting were tired, hot thirsty, had not been to a bathroom all day, and were worried about what had had happened to the others not with them.
It became dark. Still, they sat, waiting, as told.
They had begun working eighteen hours earlier.
"Finally, next thing we saw was them coming over the hill, in the dark, dragging something," Mrs. Rexford said.
"Kimberly Stuart had passed out. I was told she'd been dragged back. I'm not sure and she don't remember.
"The soles of their shoes had fallen off. They put us all on the bus and took us back to Panama City."
It was Mrs. Stuart who found tar on her body when she showered. She had not remembered being dragged.
Hospital abuse
Recently warned that her painful "boils" could spread to her internal organs, Mrs. Rexford continues being prescribed antibiotics, over and over, and also Focalin.
Asked why Foclin, a drug prescribed for ADHD, Mrs. Rexford said, "Because I couldn't remember anymore."
This writer's sources have also reported widespread "confusion" among Gulf Coast resident.
Mrs. Rexford said that soon after she started working, she noticed that she "could not focus."
As for her "boils," Mrs. Rexford questions both the diagnosis and treatment.
"They say this is staph. But they [the boils] burst - and nobody else in my family has had them.
"Staph is suppose to be highly infectious. If this is really staph, by now someone else in my family would have it, especially my husband, or my 2-year old.
"They say it is not MRSA, but they hadn't been taking cultures. They just keep lancing them off. They took one culture but I haven't been able to see it."
Except for the last one, Mrs. Rexford had some of her "boils" lanced in the hospital, a painful process, as demonstrated in the Youtube video below, MRSA Draining.
Releasing pus in a boil can lead to further infection. Puncturing it at home, therefore, is usually not advised. Doctors are supposedly better equipped to lance boils. They supposedly have the necessary equipnonamement plus supposedly have an understanding of the nuances.
noname
Photos: Gulf operation "boils". Jennifer Rexford
The last time Mrs. Rexford had a boil removed in hospital, will be the last time she said.
The last sore Mrs. Rexford had "treated" was huge, the largest of the fifteen. "And it was on my breast," she explained. Knowing that, a male doctor, alone, was called in to treat her and she knew that was not right, she said. He should have had a female attendant there with them.
Before "treating" Mrs. Rexford, the doctor said, "I don't want to hear you whining and crying about the pain!"
"I'm tired of people you who don't take your antibiotics!"
Mrs. Rexford said hospital staff also accused her of not bathing enough, attributing her huge infected sores all over her body, that she'd never had until her beach clean-up work, to her personal hygiene.
The doctor did not use a lancet to remove the sore on her breast, such as used in the procedure in the Youtube video below demonstrates.
Instead, as she explained, he used a barbaric and undignified method on her.
"He used his fingers. He squeezed it with his fingers. It was huge. I screamed out in pain," she said.
When she screamed, a male nurse went and got the administrator. The puss was everywhere according to Mrs. Rexford.
"They just kept telling me, 'Calm down!'
"I'm 5'10' and given birth to three boys. You don't just tell me this is normal treatment and to just 'Calm down.'"
With help of Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors, filmmaker and journalist Jerry Cope intends to make Mrs. Rexford's wish come true while she is alive, the wish that she and her surviving former co-workers can get their stories heard by President Obama. Mrs. Rexford has arranged for her injured, sick and cruelly treated co-workers to meet Friday with Mr. Cope.
Until then, with all their might, Mrs. Rexford and her friends will not "calm down." Furthermore, they want others in this pacified nation to break their calmness, too.
She said, "People aren't listening to us."
"I have three sons. I don't want this to get worse."
After thanking Mrs. Rexford for the interview and saying goodbye, she asked, "Please. Tell them to stand up for us."
http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/gulf-clean-up-workers-vow-no-more-silence