Asbestos link to worker’s death

5:04pm Friday 1st February 2008

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A RETIRED shipyard worker died of an asbestos related cancer linked to his work in the 1950s.

An inquest in Blackburn heard that Barrow-in-Furness-born Thomas Keith Armer had been employed in the town's ship building yards cutting asbestos sheets.

He took voluntary redundancy in 1992 but four years later a chest X-ray revealed the possibility of problems.

Ten years later he became breathless and chesty and it was subsequently confirmed that he had a malignant mesothelioma.

Mr Armer, 73, was provided with palliative care and was living at Birchall Nursing Home, Darwen, at the time of his death.

A post-mortem examination revealed a timorous mass encasing the left lung and the pericardium and diaphragm and there was also encasement of the aorta.

The medical cause of death was given as malignant mesothelioma due to exposure to asbestos and coroner Michael Singleton recorded a verdict of industrial disease.