Former England football star Stuart Pearce is blowing the whistle on
asbestos after revealing he could have breathed in the deadly dust while
working part time as an electrician during his early football career.
The Nottingham Forest manager and former Newcastle and England left back
fears his ignorance about the fatal fibre when he worked for four years
as an electrician, means there’s a real possibility he could develop a
deadly asbestos related disease in the future. He is now backing an
asbestos safety campaign by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) urging
all tradespeople to be aware of asbestos and take sensible measures
against the hidden killer.
While safe work with asbestos has come a
long way since Pearce was working as an electrician in the early 1980s,
it remains a very real danger today. HSE estimates 1.3 million
tradespeople are still potentially at risk of being exposed to the
microscopic fibres that can prove fatal if breathed in.
Pearce
said: “I was working as an electrician for four and a half years and
it’s chilling to think I could have been exposed to it without knowing,
we were simply ignorant about the risks back then. Today there’s no
excuse – most people know how dangerous asbestos is but many think it’s a
thing of the past, it’s not, it’s still there. It can be found in
walls, ceilings, even floor tiles and guttering – basically in any type
of building built before the year 2000. Making sure you’re aware of
where it can be found and how to deal with it safely, even on basic jobs
like drilling holes or sanding, really could mean the difference
between life and death.”
The trained electrician turned football legend is also encouraging workers to use a free web app – provided here by CRS
- for phones, tablets and pcs that helps tradespeople easily identify
where they could come into contact with asbestos as they go about their
day-to-day work and gives them easy-to-follow guides on how to deal
work safely.
Pearce added “It can be so easy to breathe in this
deadly dust and it may be years until you realise you’ve been affected.
Every tradesperson that falls victim to asbestos related diseases like
mesothelioma and asbestosis is one too many, especially if it’s a result
of ignorance. Let’s make asbestos deaths a thing of the past.”
To get the free web app please visit www.beware-asbestos.info/news
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