- Harmful fumes caused the death of a Chicago police officer in April after he was exposed weeks earlier to a cleaning substance at a far Southwest Side station where he worked, according to autopsy results released recently by the Cook County medical examiner's office.
Kevin Robinson, 42, a tactical officer with 15 years with the department, died of a lung illness from inhaling the noxious fumes, the autopsy report said. His death was ruled an accident.
Robinson, assigned to the Morgan Park police district, was taken to Advocate Trinity Hospital in early March. He told another officer he was coughing and having trouble breathing after inhaling a cleaning substance that a maintenance worker sprayed from an aerosol can on a desk at the district station, according to a police report.
You don't go to work and expect to be felled by an aerosol cleaning substance. We can only imagine the questions and such going through the officer's family's minds. To be 42 years old and a cop for 15 of them and suddenly, Dad isn't there because of an undiscovered chemical sensitivity?
Hopefully, the Department does right by his children, though we honestly don't know. This is tragic.
UPDATE: We are told that OSHA will not review cases like these as they don't investigate government agencies (like the mold problems.) In instances like these, you have to contact the Illinois Department of Labor website and click on the "Health and Safety" link for complaints and forms. The doubter in us says that this is kind of like the fox guarding the hen house as it's a state agency in a state known for political corruption and cronyism.
Hopefully, the Department does right by his children, though we honestly don't know. This is tragic.
UPDATE: We are told that OSHA will not review cases like these as they don't investigate government agencies (like the mold problems.) In instances like these, you have to contact the Illinois Department of Labor website and click on the "Health and Safety" link for complaints and forms. The doubter in us says that this is kind of like the fox guarding the hen house as it's a state agency in a state known for political corruption and cronyism.