By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

TOXIC smoke is choking Spring City.

Residents, some hospitalised or forced to flee, are sounding alarms over a health emergency they say has been years in the making and still ignored.

The latest wildfire that swept through the area reignited a festering crisis at the nearby debris site. Once intended as a temporary dump, it has long exceeded capacity and now serves as a smouldering threat to everyone nearby.

Andrea McIntosh, one of the affected residents, described terrifying symptoms.

“I had shortness of breath, high blood pressure, headaches,” she said. “My body just felt cold. I’ve never had asthma, never been on a ventilator, but I had to be given a pump and told to leave the island for a few days.” She was relocated to Freeport, Grand Bahama, where she received oxygen and antibiotics at Rand Memorial Hospital. A doctor told her she would have developed bronchitis if she had stayed.

“If I stayed there in Abaco, it would’ve gotten worse,” she said. “They need to rectify this issue. That debris site should’ve never been there in the first place. Residents live in Spring City. How could they put a dump so close, knowing a fire could spread?”

The situation has sparked a firestorm on social media. In a Facebook post that quickly went viral, resident Chamara Parotti pleaded for help.

“The situation in Spring City should be the number one topic in the country today,” she said. “The fumes and smoke from the laydown site have been blanketing our community for weeks now. Several residents are severely ill. Most are coughing, having headaches and vomiting. Some are having panic attacks and claustrophobia from being trapped inside without access to fresh air and sunshine. When we had a town meeting regarding the situation, we were asked about what could be done to help and why no plan was in place to help us. We were told to write letters. At the time of our meeting, the MP had no plans in place for air, soil, or groundwater testing. We were offered a case of N95 masks that he had in his office.”

Chrystal Ferguson, another resident, has been hit hard.

“I been off for about two weeks because of the smoke and the fumes,” she said. “Every day, I have to go back to the doctor, go on the ventilator. It’s me and my household; three of us sick. I’ve spent over $1,000 in just two weeks on medication and doctor visits.”

She continued: “If I had somewhere else to go, I would’ve left. But I don’t. I have to stay inside my house with all my windows closed and just try to survive.”

The stench, she said, smells like “human remains, chemicals—everything burning in that site.”

The fire itself has been contained, but the real hazard lies in the debris site it reignited.

Lotti Williams, Spring City’s local government representative, said people are battling symptoms including diarrhoea, shortness of breath, racing hearts, burning eyes and noses, and severe headaches.

She criticised the government’s decision to place the dump near a residential area and blasted the lack of response to years of complaints. She said the smoke has shuttered businesses, kept children home from school, and trapped people inside their homes, describing it as a public health emergency that demands immediate action.