Exposure to toxic chemicals in the air corps: 'I hate that my life feels over at 53'

Years of exposure to toxic chemicals while serving in the air corps have left Mick Murphy practically bed-ridden

Like so many of his peers, Mick Murphy ended up being exposed to a variety of highly toxic chemicals, including the now-banned solvent trichloroethylene. File picture: Eamonn  Farrell/RollingNews.ie

After serving in the army and then the air corps before distinguished service in the gardaí, Mick Murphy has much to be proud of.

As well as a successful battle against cancer in his 20s, the 53-year-old also brims with pride when he thinks about his three daughters and his son.

But there is also sadness. Years of exposure to toxic chemicals while serving in the air corps have taken their toll. They have left him practically bed-ridden amid decades of constantly battling one illness after the other.

When Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, then in opposition, labelled the air corps toxic chemical exposure scandal a “horror story” in the Dáil in 2017, Mr Murphy knew exactly what he was talking about.

The previous year, there were only two months when he wasn’t in a hospital. 

Then, that December, he got hit by double pneumonia and pulmonary sepsis. 

As a result, he now has to use a nebuliser four times a day as well as an inhaler.

He had to have an oxygen-compression machine fitted in his bedroom and oxygen tanks installed downstairs.

Mr Murphy's horror story began just a few years after he completed his Leaving Certificate in 1989.

Aircraft technician

While he initially joined the 3rd Infantry Battalion of the army and did basic training in 1990, he proceeded to do an apprenticeship as an aircraft technician in the air corps.

Getting discharged from the army and re-enlisting and joining the air corps would mean he would be paid less as an apprentice. 

However, despite this, he didn’t mind. “The future was bright,” he recalled. “I was on top of the world. Everything was just fitting into place.” 

From the start of his career  until he left in 2001, Mr Murphy worked in the basic flight training school where he worked on the piston-engined Marchetti Warrior, a light Italian-made plane used mainly as a military trainer and aerobatics aircraft.

His work involved completely disassembling the aircraft, inspecting it, and then rebuilding it from scratch.

It was during this work that, like so many of his peers, Mr Murphy ended up being exposed to a variety of highly toxic chemicals, including the now-banned solvent trichloroethylene (TCE).

Although TCE was once used in the 1920s as a medical anaesthetic — sometimes with fatal consequences — it was primarily used to degrease metal parts and as a component in paint strippers.

By the time Mr Murphy was exposed to it, studies since at least the 1960s had linked it to workplace deaths.

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A number of fatalities were also associated with liver damage among those exposed to TCE for what were defined as either “intermediate” or “chronic” durations.

Between 1951 and the time Mr Murphy served in the air corps, at least 10 studies linked deaths to TCE exposure.

Despite these and other studies highlighting the dangers, he says he was provided with “little or no” protective gloves, masks, or breathing equipment.

"Back then not only was there little or no protective equipment, but there were also military orders,” says Mr Murphy.

You basically did what you were told and you just did not question the order of a superior officer. You could constantly smell the fumes, and the dust. Lads were always coughing.

About four years after he started in the air corps, he started getting tired more often and experienced chest pain, night sweats, and a persistent cough.

A year after daughter Aoife was born, he got news he didn’t expect: He had the blood cancer Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was only 23.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he says. “I was just floored by the news.

I was never told any cause for my cancer and I suppose I just thought I had been a bit unlucky in life. It was only later in life that I heard about friends I had served with either died or ended up being really sick.

Unbeknown to him at the time, the disease is one of the cancers linked to exposure to certain industrial chemical solvents like TCE. 

Other consequences of exposure to toxic chemicals include an increased risk of developing depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders.

There was no history of cancer in his family so the diagnosis came as a massive shock.

Garda career

He ultimately made a recovery and left the air corps in 2001, after 11 years' service, to pursue a career in An Garda Síochána. 

It was just something he decided he would like to do. 

Two years after joining, he was injured while saving the life of a man who had fallen into a fast-moving river.

"I enjoyed the work and challenges from day one," says Mr Murphy. 

I really felt I could make a positive difference to people’s lives. I discovered that I found studying the law enjoyable, as well as being in a job where you could be as busy as you chose.

"I chose to be very busy and ended up earning numerous commendations for police work, and was awarded a silver medal for bravery and even got to meet the president in Áras an Uachtaráin.

Mick Murphy ended up earning numerous commendations for police work. File picture: Denis Minihane

“With relatively short service in the guards, I made it off the regular unit and was appointed into the traffic corps.

“After 12 years and the belief I was infertile, my wife became pregnant again and I had a son, Alex.

“Then we planned again and three years later another daughter, Hannah, arrived.

“Life was good, until it wasn’t.”

Anxiety and depression

When he was in his mid-30s, despite once again feeling great about life, doing well in another career and fathering children, Mr Murphy suddenly started experiencing bouts of crippling anxiety.

“I fell into serious depression, again for no apparent reason,” he said.

“This depression was serious enough that I considered suicide and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a time.

“I was also having severe abdominal pain at the time.

“Despite being very fit — and even having my own little gym in my garage and working out every day, I was suddenly feeling ill again.

Apart from the fact that I had no idea why I was suffering from anxiety or depression, I couldn’t understand the abdominal pain.

As he would later find out, it was a common complaint among former air corps personnel who started experiencing health problems.

Mr Murphy ended up having his gall bladder removed, but as that didn’t solve the abdominal pain, more tests showed he actually had a stomach ulcer.

A physically fit young man before he fell ill, Mick Murphy says he has never “joined up the dots” on the reasons for his ailments.

Surgery led to him being opened up from his chest to his groin and then stapled back up.

After he got out of hospital, the pain returned when his duodenal stump — the closed end of the duodenum left after the gastrectomy to remove the stomach ulcer — ruptured.

He had to have emergency surgery to repair it, not just once but three times, and he has suffered with chronic permanent pain ever since.

Mr Murphy has few ambitions left, but one is his desire to stay alive until at least his youngest daughter Hannah reaches the age of 18. 

That will come in two years' time.

A physically fit young man before he fell ill, he says he has never “joined up the dots” on the reasons for his ailments.

Experts, including consultants who treated him over the years in Dublin's St James's Hospital, have always been baffled by his ill health and what could have caused it.

“I hurt all the time now, physically and mentally,” says Mr Murphy, who also had all his teeth removed in one sitting when he was aged 48.

“The State absolutely needs to investigate and to recognise there was toxic exposure in the air corps and some percentage of those exposed have serious medical issues that need to be addressed.” 

He adds: “I hate that my life feels over at 53.”