Walter’s Story

Mesothelioma Warrior Walter Twidwell was diagnosed with the asbestos-caused cancer after a 20-year career in the U.S. Navy. The deadly substance was in the materials Walter used for his job as a boilerman.

“I did not want to be a logger,” Walter said. Instead, he left the dense rain forest and timber industry of Washington to join the Navy. “And I stayed there,” serving on seven ships during a career that began in 1954 during the Korean Conflict.

The harmony was interrupted by the sour note of a pleural mesothelioma diagnosis. Frequent bouts of pneumonia had led Walter to ask his doctor for answers. The diagnosis started with a chest X-ray, followed quickly by a biopsy. It confirmed that asbestos exposure during his time in the U.S. Navy had resulted in the cancer in Walter’s lungs.

The diagnosis didn’t diminish his fight; instead, Walter strengthened his resolve.

“When I got told they knew many years prior what asbestos would do to the human being,” Walter said, “I got mad and said, ‘Heck with this noise, they’re gonna hear from me.’”

And they did, to the tune of a $40.1 million mesothelioma verdict.

Walter started working young. “My dad died when I was 14 years old,” he said. He went to work milking cows before school. At 17, schooling complete, Walter followed his uncle to sea. “I was impressed,” he said, “that Navy uniform, you know.”

As a boiler tender, Walter constantly handled products that contained asbestos. Shipboard steam plants rely on the high-heat capacity and durability of asbestos, and its presence was no secret.

“I always knew that there was asbestos,” Walter said, “I asked them what the material was made out of you know and they told me asbestos.” But nobody ever told him that asbestos causes cancer. That information had been omitted by the asbestos companies who put the toxic material in their products.

Walter shook his head; “Nobody ever said anything about it being dangerous.”

Walter threw himself into his work. In 1970, off the Vietnam coast, a marathon or repairs is how Walter earned the Commendation from the Navy. The leaks were bad, he explained, “the engine room had a leak they were living with, and they were losing a lot of water out of that. And I had a few leaks in my boiler room.” Leaks only get worse over time, and they’d been out a while. “Nine months overseas. And we went dead in the water, purposely.” Walter got to work. “I spent three days and three nights down there, working on valves and gaskets. Got that leak stopped.”

Even in less extreme times, “there was never, never a boring moment. I always had gaskets to work on. Always had valves to work on,” Walter said. But there was a dark side to his dedication to his job, and the asbestos came back to haunt him.

Normally stoic, Walter broke. “I got a knot in my stomach you know,” he recalled about hearing the diagnosis. Advice from his doctor was blunt. “He told me then that there was no cure for it. He said, ‘You have all your paperwork in order?’ I said, ‘Yes I do.’ He said, ‘Well, keep it there.'”

Walter’s way of life changed forever after the diagnosis. Emotionally, it lingered. “I’m a little angry about it, yes I am” he said. “It set me back for a couple days, but I’m old enough to where I’ve accepted it.”

But as the disease progressed, it would rob Walter of his independence. “I can’t cut wood [or] raise a big garden or anything anymore,” he lamented. “It hurts cause knowing that I [had] been so independent all my life, and all of a sudden I can’t do anything for myself.”

A friend suggested calling a mesothelioma lawyer, but Walter was reluctant. “I didn’t want to sue my government and I damn sure didn’t want to sue the Navy, ’cause they’re still feeding me,” he explained. Walter’s friend acted on his behalf and contacted Simmons Hanly Conroy.

Walter chuckled, “He says, ‘I called ’em and told ’em where you was livin’, told ’em all about ya.’ Here they was, here they came. So, he’s the one that did it.”

A partner at Simmons Hanly Conroy quickly put Walter at ease. “It was only two or three days and he was here,” Walter marveled. “He didn’t do it by phone. He came and seen me and talked to me personally. He knew what kind of a man I was and how involved I was with my job in the Navy.”

Walter appreciated the way his attorney handled his mesothelioma lawsuit. “It was a hands-on approach and that’s what drew me cause that’s the way I do things, a hands-on approach,” Walter said.

As compassionately as Simmons Hanly Conroy treated Walter, the firm was equally as aggressive seeking justice and mesothelioma compensation. “I was watching the way they handled it,” Walter recounted the experience of going to trial and how impressed he was at the way the trial team prepared his case.

“They could go back to day one and had the paperwork to back them up,” he said. “I couldn’t stop thinking to myself ‘Oh, wow! These boys know what they’re doin’.”