NH MediaMayor Wortelboer lays flowers at the monument
NOS Nieuws•gisteren, 22:12
This week marks 25 years since one of the largest outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease ever occurred at the West Frisian Flora in Bovenkarspel. The outbreak claimed the lives of more than thirty people. Relatives and visitors who survived gathered this afternoon at the memorial in the North Holland village.
For many years, the West Frisian Flora was the largest indoor bulb flower exhibition in the world and attracted tens of thousands of visitors every year in its heyday. In 1999, legionella bacteria had developed at Flora in a hot tub with water from a fire hose that had not been used for some time.
Hundreds of visitors became ill, including Ton van Doorn (92) from Heiloo. He was in the hospital for more than a week and had to fight for his life, the regional broadcaster wrote NH. He really wanted to be at the commemoration in Bovenkarspel today. “I don’t know any of the deceased, but I kind of owe it to them. I could have been one of them,” he says.
32 people died as a result of the outbreak. Mayor Wortelboer of the municipality of Stede Broec laid a wreath for them at the monument on the Spoorsingel.
Sober
To the disappointment of the Legionnaires’ Disease Foundation, it was one sober commemoration. “It is characteristic of the problem. There is too little attention for this silent killer,” says Diana Snijder of the patient organization.
According to the foundation, many survivors have suffered lasting health problems from the outbreak. “People who survived never became the same again,” says Snijder.
2024-03-12 21:12:15
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