Tobacco workers sickened

NINE TAKEN TO HOSPITALS WITH NAUSEA, CRAMPS

By Steve Lannen

Nine tobacco workers were taken to various Lexington hospitals yesterday evening after becoming seriously ill on the job.

They suffered from abdominal cramps, nausea and vomiting, and all had worked on a crew together, said a worker who was not ill.

Lexington paramedics responded to the Ingleside Mobile Home Park off Gibson and Devonshire avenues a little after 6 p.m., said Maj. Jeff Nantz with the Lexington fire department.

"We suspect there was tobacco poisoning," he said.

Known often as "green tobacco sickness," the illness results from absorbing nicotine from tobacco leaves through the skin.

Three workers were taken to Good Samaritan, three to UK Hospital and three to St. Joseph.

Some of the crew members who were not as ill stayed behind. One of them, Victor Felix Lamarras, lay on the floor of a mobile home, his shirt off, and his arm covering his head. He eventually had to run outside to vomit.

Nearby, Roberto Ramirez, 31, sat against a wall. He said he he'd been working alongside the other men but was not sick.

Ramirez said the crew had been cutting tobacco on a farm -- he didn't know which one -- yesterday afternoon. As they hung the tobacco from rafters, there was a fire underneath to dry the leaves, he said. The smoke concentrated where many of the men worked, he said.

Ramirez said the men had been in Lexington eight days and that this was the first year they had worked tobacco.