By David Karas/The Times
EWING — “I’m not feeling too good, if you can send someone over here,” an out-of-breath Marisa Hutton told the 911 dispatcher at The College of New Jersey Police Department on Oct. 20, 2011. “I’m having a hard time breathing. There is some kind of smell over here.”
Campus police officer Julia Verwers was the first to arrive at Hutton’s office in Armstrong Hall, which houses offices and classrooms for the School of Engineering. Verwers reported that Hutton “had numbness and tingling in her left arm,” was “asthmatic and having difficulty breathing,” and “having a hard time staying conscious.”
Just five days earlier, a crew had begun applying an adhesive as part of a roof replacement, and a sharp chemical odor had entered the hallways, offices and classroom spaces.
The work continued on and off for several months, and the odor persisted, prompting more complaints from staff members. Internal e-mail messages suggest that school officials, fearing a flood of requests for building transfers, encouraged “hand holding” by administrators and environmental health officers to get workers to live with the odor.
Hutton survived the Oct. 20 incident, but her attorney says her respiratory problems have been exacerbated by the adhesive exposure.
At least six TCNJ employees reported headaches, dizziness, nausea or eye irritation after being exposed to the odor that October, and for weeks afterward others reported concerns about the odor and its effect on students and staff.
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