Darryl Ivy Interview: People Don't Realize That These Chemicals Are a Threat

Kathleen Hallal, GMO Free News: There are other people around and there's like a lady with the kid with the dog kind of in the stream and you guys are working and you're dumping the bucket that's been full of.... Darryl: I think it was atrazine being rinsed and filled in the stream and the truck's leaking all over the place right next to the stream and everyone knows what's going on and what's surprising to me is how casual everybody else is while handling these chemicals you know. Kathleen: We know about Tyrone Hayes and his findings of atrazine especially in streams you know changing the sexes of frogs and causing deformations and wreaking all kinds of havoc and how the company Syngenta hired private investigators to harass him and try to ruin his life and get him fired from Berkeley so we know the hazards of these chemicals because brave scientists like Evan (E.G. Vallianatos) and like Tyrone Hayes have been brave enough to speak out about these chemicals and you kind of had an idea, right? You're not feeling so well, you're around these chemicals and you're not feeling so well, but what's interesting is how other people who are handling them are so casual about it. She has her baby right near where they're putting it in the stream, and her dog. I think that at least for me what strikes me about your story is how... how many people don't realize that these chemicals are a threat. You were feeling it, you were seeing it, and you'd been to a talk prior to the job so you knew that something was going on that people needed to be aware of, so you started filming this. So why don't you talk a little bit about that? Were you the only person that knew that things were being mishandled? Darryl: No, everybody knows that. In some of my videos my coworker --the other driver-- you know, he also admits to being sprayed and getting welts on his arms. That was one of the reasons I discounted maybe that these chemicals are really, really bad because the other driver had been there for quite a bit longer. My pilot had been there for twenty years, been spraying and he was a really, really good guy and he didn't look blotchy, and he didn't look like he had any what we would all assume is somebody who's been dipped in a chemical toxic bucket.

Seneca Timber forestry representative, who is monitoring the job site, with her child and dog at the creek we used to get water and wash buckets. (See Video)

He seemed normal. And so I just assumed it was all normal. But, as far as the forester there with her child, that was really disheartening because I tell people I'm 45 years old. I'm done making babies but if these chemicals, in days, can put me into an emergency room with the hazmat team trying to burn my clothes and me in a decontamination unit getting zapped by this high powered water and then a special ventilation room as if I had ebola, you know, its really disheartening to think what would these chemicals do to a pregnant lady or developing child? And here I am driving Kathleen: Go back...you skipped a really interesting part of your story . So you eventually got very sick, and you were put in the hospital ? Darryl: Oh yes, seventeen days in. I could no longer function properly. I could not breathe right. I had lost so much sleep that I actually drove off... -- I have never done this in my life ever --- I fell asleep on a mountain road with thousands of gallons of chemicals in the back of my truck and have not admitted this to anybody up until right now. I was so tired--- so sleep-deprived and so messed up by the chemicals--- that I drove off the side of the road and just by blessing it was a big muddy little swampy area that I drove into and another truck was able to come back hook up to me, and pull me out. I poured bottles of water over my head and I realized Holy Moly! I can't even operate... I can't even even drive this truck on a forest road much less on a road where there's other people that I could run into, and it really started hit me hard. I had no choice but go to the hospital. I could not function anymore. And it was disgruntling, because normally I'm more resilient than the guy next to me. I always try to be the..you know in Alaska, we have a saying you know you don't have to be the fastest runner you just have to if a bear's chasing you you just have to run faster than the slower guy and I didn't want to be that guy. Kathleen: So you end up in the hospital and what's their reaction when they see you? Darryl: They made me stand outside the emergency room. They didn't even want me in the emergency room. And this is a testament to the two different sides of the stories that I heard from Beyond Toxics that night at the town hall meeting,and of course you know I've learned since then a lot of people would like to tell you these chemicals are very, very safe and then some of these people--- when you show up in the emergency room--- and they do research on the federal data sheets, make you stand outside the emergency room until they get their decontamination room ready and they strip you naked and take your clothes. They put them in hazmat buckets and I mean it goes to show that some people that are in the industry that are receiving financial monies will tell you that these chemicals are just fine and then a gentleman with Roseburg Fire Department his only job---his oath--- is to protect the public and not to protect the chem, not to say anything bad about the chemical---, His job was basically to protect people in that emergency room, to isolate me from them and so he knew what he was dealing with. And so I have to take sides with the public health officials that these chemicals are bad for you They treated me as if I just came out of an ebola situation and I thank them for it. They did a great job.

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