Why do these people have to continue to wait for clean water?
July 29, 2015
By Alana Semuels
July 29, 2015
By Alana Semuels
Flint, Mich.—Melissa Mays (click here)
looks around the emergency room at a frail, elderly man in a wheelchair
and a woman with a hacking cough and can’t quite believe she’s here.
Until a few months ago, she was healthy—an active mother of three boys
who found time to go to the gym while holding down a job as a media
consultant and doing publicity for bands.
But lately,
she’s been feeling sluggish. She’s developed a rash on her leg, and
clumps of her hair are falling out. She ended up in the emergency room
last week after feeling “like [her] brain exploded,” hearing pops, and
experiencing severe pain in one side of her head.
Mays
blames her sudden spate of health problems on the water in her hometown
of Flint. She says it has a blue tint when it comes out of her faucet,
and lab results indicate it has high amounts of copper and lead. Her
family hasn’t been drinking the water for some months, but they have
been bathing in it, since they have no alternative....
