Anthrax Fears in a 911 Call

In a chilling 911 call just hours before he died, a Washington mail sorter told a dispatcher that he suspected he had been exposed at work to an envelope containing lethal anthrax spores.

Thomas L. Morris Jr., speaking calmly and clearly, said he felt like he was “about to pass out” and that he was worried because his symptoms fit “almost to the T” a description of the disease in a notice distributed to postal employees. But Morris’ supervisors had told him there was little reason to believe workers were in danger of contracting the disease, and his doctor advised him his illness was likely caused by a virus.

Morris died Oct. 21, hours after being taken by ambulance to a hospital. Two days after his death, the case was confirmed as inhalation anthrax.

The call raises new questions about the delays in treating postal employees, including Morris, who worked at the facility that processed an anthrax-laced letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). The letter was postmarked Oct. 9 and opened Oct. 15 by a congressional aide to Daschle. While authorities moved immediately to treat employees on Capitol Hill and shut down a contaminated Senate office building, federal health officials told workers at the postal facility that they were not at risk.

In Morris’ call--first reported Wednesday by an NBC affiliate in Washington--he told the 911 operator that he had been nearby when a co-worker handled an envelope filled with powder the previous Saturday.

“I don’t know anything. I don’t know anything,” Morris said after being asked by the dispatcher if he’d been told what was in the envelope. “I couldn’t even find out if the stuff was or wasn’t. I was told that it wasn’t. But I have a tendency not to believe these people.”

Morris’s breathing grew more labored as he answered questions. He told the dispatcher that he had just vomited for the first time.

Asked if he had relayed his concerns about anthrax to his doctor, he said: “Yes, I did. But he said that he didn’t think that it was that. He thought that it was probably a virus or something.”

The operator told him an ambulance would be sent.

Earlier in the call, Morris spoke in a calm, even voice, telling the dispatcher that the doctor had taken a culture but a “hang-up” over the weekend may have delayed results.

“But in the meantime, I went through a achiness and headachiness; this started Tuesday,” he said. “Now I’m having difficulty breathing and, just to move any distance, I feel like I’m going to pass out. I’m here at the house, my wife is here, I’m on the couch.

“The doctor thought that it was just a virus or something, so we went with that and I was taking Tylenol for the achiness. Except the shortness of breath now, I don’t know, that’s consistent with the, with the anthrax.”

Morris worked at the Brentwood distribution center, but postal authorities said Wednesday that the envelope Morris referred to was separate from the Daschle letter and was turned over to the FBI when it was first discovered.

Deborah Willhite, a Postal Service vice president, said her agency had followed proper procedure. The letter was examined at an Army chemical weapon facility and tested negative for anthrax, she said.

She said the cause of Morris’ death was a “matter of an ongoing criminal investigation.”

Dr. Ivan Walks, Washington’s chief health officer, said listening to the Morris call was “horrifying.” But he said public health officials were operating on the best knowledge they had at the time of how anthrax spreads.

“When [Morris] is telling people, ‘I think this is what’s wrong’ and everyone--including his own doctor--is telling him, ‘No, that’s not it’--it just chills me,” Walks said. “And he’s not the only one who got that sort of a stiff arm.”

Walks said they first became aware that inhalation anthrax at Brentwood might be possible two days before Morris died, when one of his co-workers went to a Virginia hospital with suspicious symptoms. By the time health officials found out about Morris’ death, provisions were already being made to treat thousands of employees.

“No one was put aside because they weren’t important or didn’t work on Capitol Hill,” said Walks, who said that top federal and local officials felt safe enough to attend the Brentwood news conference.

In the days after learning that anthrax had come through the busy Brentwood facility, top postal officials offered assurances that Brentwood employees were in no danger from the Daschle letter.

The distribution center was shut down the day Morris died--six days after the Hart Senate Office Building was evacuated when the Daschle letter was opened, spewing powder into the air.

A day after Morris’s death, his co-worker Joseph Curseen Jr. also died of inhalation anthrax. Two other Brentwood workers entered area hospitals the same weekend. Their cases were later confirmed as inhalation anthrax and they remain hospitalized.

So far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have confirmed 17 cases of anthrax. Last week, Kathy T. Nguyen, 61, died of inhalation anthrax in New York in a case that has baffled investigators. Except for Nguyen’s illness, investigators believe all other anthrax cases can be tracked to the mail attacks.

The early reassurances that postal workers were safe enraged many employees who were told after the deaths of their co-workers to “immediately” report to D.C. General Hospital to begin precautionary antibiotic treatment.

Postal workers in New Jersey, where all three known anthrax-laced letters were postmarked, were also furious with the response to their concerns. Union leaders there have demanded to know why it took postal inspectors nearly a week to test and close down the distribution center after authorities learned contaminated letters had been handled there.

In Washington, the initial concern was focused on Capitol Hill. Thousands of congressional aides and lawmakers were tested for anthrax exposure and given anti-anthrax drugs in the days after the Daschle letter was opened Oct. 15.

But public health officials said postal workers were not at risk. Brentwood, which handles 800,000 pieces of mail daily, remained open that week.

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Times staff writer Edmund Sanders contributed to this report.

A recording of the telephone call between postal worker Thomas L. Morris Jr. and a 911 operator is available on The Times’ Web site at https://www.latimes.com/anthrax.

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