When 39-year-old Tanesha Fredericks started working at a local subsidiary of Trinidad Oil Company – Centipede Offshore (Guyana) Inc, she had no idea that several months later she would be unable to turn on a tap because of the injuries she would sustain as a result of handling toxic chemicals and cleaning agents without proper gloves.
Centipede Offshore Guyana Inc provides services to ExxonMobil here. The company could not be contacted for comment.
Speaking with Stabroek News yesterday, the mother of two disclosed that she started working as a utilities cleaner with the company in September last year. When she got onboard the offshore rig, she was assigned to do laundry but instead of giving her masks and industrial strength gloves to do her work, they gave her surgical gloves. Having received no prior information or training on what safety measures she should take when washing those types of clothing, she set to work, exposing herself to the chemicals on the clothing.
However, a few weeks later, she started noticing that the colour of her fingers were turning into what she described as a greenish and bluish hue. Thereafter her skin and nails started peeling off and eventually her fingers started swelling.
She continued working but one day she woke up and was unable to move her fingers and when she managed to do so it was very painful. In fact, she said it was so painful she could not open a water bottle. She decided to go to the ships’ doctor and he prescribed some pain medication along with a cream.
According to Fredericks, she used the tablets and the cream but it did not help as her fingers got worse. She went back to the doctor sometime later and was told that she had arthritis because she was the only worker who was experiencing those issues.
“It was black, swollen, paining and it was looking disgusting,” the woman recalled. She was given more pain medication and was told to take the night off but when she told her supervisor this, she was told that there was no one else to fill her place and told her to work before promising that someone else would be sent to assist her.
The following day, she went to the doctor and they decided to send her off the ship to seek medical attention. Fredericks said that they told her that her condition was not work-related so the company would not be paying any of her medical bills. After she was taken off the rig, the company had no further contact with her and she went to the hospital to take some tests.
The doctor at the hospital explained to her that her fingers were severely burnt by the chemicals she was exposed to and that the cells were dead. Fredericks stated that while onshore her fingers worsened and were numb save for the shooting pains at the tip of each finger. She was placed on leave but after the two weeks were up, the company called and told her that she had to go into quarantine so that she can return to the rig.
Fredericks said that she explained to them that the doctor had asked her to return to the hospital so that they can do a re-evaluation at the end of the month. She was relieved of her duties the following day and was told that as per the Labour laws termination is possible because she was still on probation. Fredericks was terminated last November.
As a result, she was left unemployed and facing a number of medical expenses.
“I was left to battle for myself, I had no job and I can’t use my hands properly,” she said.
Fredericks explained that she approached the Ministry of Labour to complain of her treatment but was told that it was too expensive to go on the rig to investigate, however they said that they would visit the company’s office in Georgetown. To date, the Ministry is still to contact her on the issue. Stabroek News was unable to contact ministry officials yesterday for comment.
She decided to seek legal counsel and eventually filed a lawsuit against the company, stating that Centipede Offshore Inc had provided her with substandard gloves not suited for handling toxic chemicals and cleaning agents.
Her lawyers, Eusi Anderson and Khawn Rodney said that doctors have told Fredericks that because of the damage caused to the nerves in her fingers, she would never again be able to feel her fingers and that “her disability is permanent.”
Fredericks in her Statement of Claim (SOC) before the High Court sought an order that $1 million be granted to her as default judgment for what she said was negligence on the part of her employer for the burns she suffered on October 28 and 29, 2020.
According to court documents seen by this newspaper, she also sought special damages for medical expenses, loss of income, loss of earning capacity, interest thereon, court costs and any other order the Court deemed just to grant.
With no defence having been filed by the Defendant (Centipede Inc,) High Court Judge Fidela Corbin-Lincoln in a ruling handed down last month, granted Fredericks a default judgement.
The judge has, however, set October 21 of this year for assessment of the quantum of damages that will be awarded.
Today, Fredericks is unable to use her fingers to do the simplest of things such as turning on a tap. She said her fingers are constantly in pain and have become very tender.
“I was an independent woman. I have never depended on anybody to assist me but now I have to ask for help doing simple things,” she lamented. These changes have left Fredericks depressed as she usually feels frustrated that she cannot use her fingers and that nothing can ever compensate for what she has passed through during the past few months.
Despite taking medication to improve the condition of her fingers, Fredericks said that there has been no significant change.
“The way they have treated me is not fair at all. They just use you, watch you get hurt on their watch and then just toss you aside. They don’t even provide masks knowing that we will be handling toxic chemicals so we just inhaling that too,” she said.
