Urgent warning over popular kitchen worktop after 'tragic' deaths of young people
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The tragic deaths of two young tradespeople has sparked a major safety alert as they developed a deadly lung disease after installing a popular kitchen worktop. Silicosis is a devastating lung condition that comes from inhaling toxic silica dust, which is produced when cutting man-made stone like quartz. The risk can usually be negated by following proper safety measures, with the UK's Health and Safety Watchdog now issuing new advice to those who come into contact with the substance regularly. The risk has increased in recent months as homeowners snap up the engineered stone slabs for their home refurbishments.
Back in November, father-of-three Marek Marzec, 48, died in a London hospital bed after the condition tore up his lungs. He was given just weeks to live after spending years cutting the kitchen worktops. Tragically, his life could have been saved but the silicosis had left him so unwell that he couldn't undergo a potentially life-saving lung transplant. Speaking to the i Paper from his hospital bed, he called the dust "lethal" and complained of "appalling" work conditions that led him to his deathbed.
Marzec's death followed that of Wessam al Jundi, 28, who died in hospital in May while waiting for a lung transplant in what is believed to be the first confirmed death from silicosis in a UK engineered stone worker, reports the Daily Record. Rob Miguel, national health and safety adviser at Unite the Union previously called the the global artificial stone silicosis outbreak a “tragedy," adding "there is no need for high-silica stone use in the UK".
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