Why are there so many pneumoconiosis patients in Ganluo, Sichuan?

Ganluo County is rich in lead-zinc resources, and a large number of people working in mines inhale a lot of harmful dust, which leads to pneumoconiosis.

Muchuan County, Leshan City, Sichuan Province. Starting from Chengdu, you have to change trains three times, use three means of transportation, and finally climb a mountain road with your hands and feet, which takes at least 7 hours. So, 74-year-old farmer Wang told the story of his family to outsiders in a short word 19: "I have five sons, three of whom are sick, and two of them are dead so far."

At first, they thought this "strange disease" was tuberculosis. Later, some people said that it was "lead poisoning" when they went out to work. It was not until a few years later that they got the diagnosis certificate that they knew it was an occupational disease called silicosis, which is often called pneumoconiosis.

At this time, it has made the lungs of the Wangs' three sons fibrotic little by little, and finally became like stones, which overwhelmed them and crushed their lives and this already poor family.

During the period of 10, Wang lost two sons, one of whom suffered from the second stage of silicosis. His house is surrounded by pneumoconiosis, and his neighbors can't escape. In this village of more than 800 people, there are at least 15 pneumoconiosis patients, only 8 of whom are still breathing.

"I don't want to get pneumoconiosis, I just want to earn more money."

The youngest two sons passed away, leaving 74-year-old father Wang and 75-year-old mother Yang Caishu.

The king's waist is bent and his joints hurt. Yang Caishu couldn't sleep all night. During the day, he sat by the charcoal brazier and dozed off with his head down. He didn't even hear the sound of his crutch falling to the ground. In the empty room, only their rooster is jumping around and barking nervously.

Wang had seven children, and the fifth and sixth of the deceased lived with them before their death. Wang Zuquan, the 52-year-old eldest son, lives alone at the foot of the mountain and sometimes climbs up the mountain to see them. This middle-aged man is always hunchbacked, and the second stage silicosis makes him look older than his actual age.

This familiar mountain road, Wang Zuquan once ran up in one breath, and now he has rested for three or four times, still panting. 1988 during the slack season, at the age of 27, he walked out of the mountain along this muddy path and went to work in the lead-zinc mine area of Ganluo County.

Located in Ganluo County, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, there are abundant lead-zinc resources, and the mines all over the mountains are like a hornet's nest. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was called "Little Hong Kong" in Sichuan. Many young people from local and neighboring counties went there for gold, including Wang Zuquan and his four younger brothers.

What people call "Little Hong Kong" is actually gray everywhere, and the air is mixed with strong diesel smell, which is simply "two worlds" compared with the beautiful Muchuan. However, the income of miners there is twice that of public officials in Muchuan County. For a family of nine with only 3 acres of land, this is a "worthwhile" way out.

"I don't want to get pneumoconiosis, I just want to earn more money." Wang Zuquan sat on the edge of the charcoal brazier, avoiding the rising smoke and squinting. At that time, his greatest expectation for life was "be happy, find someone and come back to live a good life."

After pulling sand in the mine for a month, Wang Zuquan felt that he didn't make money and turned to be a gunner. He bent down and climbed into the narrow hole, punched holes in the rock, filled with explosives, and then ran dozens of meters away to light the fuse. His protective equipment is the most common dust mask.

The dust made Wang Zuquan unable to see people one meter away. When he came out of the wellhead, his face turned pale and his sputum was covered with ashes. In that environment, even the old father couldn't recognize his son. 199 1 year, Wang cooked in ganluo mine for five months. He only remembers people coming out of the hole, but there was dust everywhere and he couldn't see their faces clearly.

"I didn't know sand at that time." After more than 20 years, I shook my head and gave a wry smile.

Nobody takes these white ashes seriously. When the Wang brothers met in the mine, they also complained that the air here was annoying. But as soon as they turned around, they discussed which boss they worked with for a short time and earned more. They naively thought that as long as they washed themselves, they would be all right. "Even if the dust is eaten into their stomachs, it will eventually be discharged."

The villagers still envy these "get rich first". Seeing them carrying fruit home, a neighbor greeted them in an exaggerated tone: "Oh, the big earners are back!" " "

After working in Ganluo piecemeal for four years, Wang Zuquan, 3 1 year-old, realized his wish. He married a girl who was 10 younger than himself, and with the 10,000 yuan saved from working, he built an 80-square-meter new house with brick and wood structure beside the road at the foot of the mountain. The following year, their son was born.

"She is young and everyone says she is beautiful." Although this marriage only lasted for five years and ended because of poverty, Wang Zuquan's drooping mouth finally raised and showed a shy smile when he mentioned that glorious day.

"I didn't earn money, but I got sick. What's the trick? "

The first person who felt that something was wrong with the dust was Wang Zuhua, an old six who was fragile since childhood.

In 2003, only Big Brother, Fifth Brother and Sixth Brother were left in the mine, and the three of them had been gunners for 10 years on and off. During the slack season, they got into the well as usual, but it didn't take long. Lao Liu started coughing all the time, always feeling very tired, and finally couldn't even walk. The doctor in Ganluo County said that he had tuberculosis and told him not to work in the mine.

Lao Liu went home and took medicine for tuberculosis for half a year. He didn't get better, and his appetite became worse. As long as this young man in his early thirties takes off his clothes and goes to bed at night, he will catch a cold the next day and will not get well for half a month.

That year, the mine in Ganluo County collapsed, and the Sichuan provincial government demanded that the illegally mined mining area be rectified. Laid-off workers are busy looking for other ways to live, and no one cares about the Wangs' illness.

Wang Zutuan, a bachelor, is still single. During that time, he looked for objects everywhere, and happened to meet a divorced woman who had a formal job in the county. But half a year after he came back from Ganluo, he also began to cough and cough up blood.

The illness of old five is more serious than that of old six. Father subcontracted to other places and took 4000 yuan to send him to a specialized hospital in Shanxi to treat tuberculosis. After more than a month of treatment, the money was spent, but his condition did not improve. Finally, he had to go home and continue to take ordinary cold medicine.

Afraid of his illness, the family prepared a pair of bowls and chopsticks for him alone, and the food was also scooped out.

In just one year, the body of the old five collapsed. He is too thin to walk and sleep. After lying in bed, my back ached and I almost plunged into the brazier.

The naughty young man loves to make friends and has a bad temper. He wants to drink water for a while and porridge for a while. When his mother Yang Caishu brought it, he couldn't eat any more. He just gasped and pulled his neck up.

When the chest pain was unbearable, he hit himself on the head with a heavy object. Because he had no strength, he only hit a big bag. He tried to electrocute himself by touching the light bulb, but he didn't die.

"It won't die if it is smashed, and it won't burn if it is burned. No problem. " The fifth man clamored for his father to sell the calf at home and buy him medicine to treat the disease.

Wang was very angry, and his two sons got "strange diseases" one after another, and they all had to take money to take medicine. This family is not rich and still lives in an adobe house. There is not even a TV in the house. Wang, who suffers from rheumatism, often has to walk two kilometers of dirt road, chop 100 kilograms of bamboo up the mountain, carry it on his shoulders, and walk to the roadside for more than an hour in exchange for 30 to 40 yuan to supplement his family.

With a good temper, he sometimes can't help complaining: "I didn't make money, but I got sick." What's your name? "

Zi and Zhu overwhelmed the king. "It hurts here or there." He reached out a pair of big wrinkled hands and rubbed their joints. "His back was hurt, too." Yang Caishu, who sat next to him for a long time and didn't talk, interjected lovingly.

In the winter of 2005, the old five fell ill and "panicked". He hid behind the stone mill in the house and rushed out for no reason to give his eldest brother a kitchen knife. Wang Zuquan covered his head and blood ran down his fingers. If he hadn't been too sick and weak, he couldn't have got up with this knife.

The younger brother who lives in the county hired a van to take his brother down the mountain and went to the county hospital for seven stitches. Wang Zuquan left this wound on his scalp, which still hurts from time to time.

Yang Caishu was too scared to stay at home and went to a neighbor's house to eat for a few days.

After shouting in the house for two days, Wang Zutuan, a 36-year-old bachelor, died. No one can tell what he looked like in the end, except for the thrilling knife. Until the fifth man died, the whole family still thought that tuberculosis had taken his life. Yang Caishu smashed her used chopsticks outside the house and burned the photos for fear of causing sadness. Today, there is no trace of his existence in this family.

At the funeral, Yang Caishu fainted from crying. Another patient at home, Lao Liu, is very scared. He asked his eldest brother in frustration, "What shall I do in the future?"

"It has been clearly illuminated, it is pneumoconiosis."

The fifth man was buried in the bamboo forest on the front slope of the house without a tombstone.

According to local customs, white-haired people can't send black-haired people, and their graves can't be built higher than their own homes, nor can they sweep the graves for the younger generation. He died without a family, not even a grave. In recent years, weeds have been drilled on the stones in graves, and moss has quickly occupied it.

During the years when Brother Wu was ill, several young people in the village had similar symptoms. Like the Wangs, they all worked in Ganluo County and worked as gunners. Everyone thought it was tuberculosis. Everyone sat together to play cards and made a long queue, but secretly said, "Don't eat with their sick people, it will be contagious."

Even the doctors in the village reminded a villager: "You should pay attention. There are so many tuberculosis in your village. You should stay with them and don't get infected.

The bachelor was the first of these people to die. Seeing him before he died, other patients were scared. Someone said, "I don't know when it's my turn."

However, when chatting together, some people began to feel a little strange: how come only people who work in Ganluo get this disease, but people close to home are not infected? It was not until they heard that two workers died in Muchuan County that they realized that the disease was probably related to their own work, and it might be Ganluo's "lead poisoning".

At that time, they thought it was "their bad luck, so life should be like this." Wang Zuquan also advised Liu Ge: "I didn't know when I was working. If I get sick, I can only take care of myself. "

In fact, when Brother Wu died, Wang Zuquan already felt that his "lead poisoning" had already happened. He is flustered and has chest tightness, and his symptoms are exactly the same as when he first became ill in the fifth and sixth years. People who used to dig half an acre of land a day now feel tired when they run faster. In 2006, he went to the county to see a doctor. The doctor pointed to his lung CT and said there were "small spots" on it.

"There is something wrong with your lungs. You can't go to the coal mine. You should take good care of yourself. It may be pneumoconiosis, very fierce. " The doctor said.

This is the first time that Wang Zuquan heard the word "pneumoconiosis". He vaguely realized that it might not be tuberculosis that killed Brother Wu, but the dust they inhaled from alveoli more than ten years ago.

When he came back from the hospital, he did not forget to remind his neighbor Li Shuquan that he also worked in Ganluo County. "You may have one, too."

Li Shuquan, the same age as his fifth brother, was so anxious that he repeatedly waved his hand: "I got nothing. I don't feel anything. I wear a mask tightly, I can work hard, I can walk, I can carry 200 Jin of bamboo. I'm sure it's no problem! "

Two years later, Li Shuquan suddenly felt flustered, and felt that "there was a breath wandering in his internal organs". He felt uncomfortable, so he quickly asked his acquaintances to take him to a bigger county nearby for medical treatment.

"Have you ever worked in a mine? You have pneumoconiosis. " The doctor told him directly.

Li Shuquan was stunned. I went to the Fourth People's Hospital of West China, Chengdu (Sichuan Provincial Institute of Occupational Disease Prevention and Treatment) and had a chest X-ray. The doctor only said one sentence to him: "There is no need to check again, it has been clearly photographed, which is pneumoconiosis. You should go to court with your boss quickly. "

"They are dead, and I don't know how."

Lao Liu's occupational disease diagnosis certificate is folded into a small square and put in a paper box. When he got this certificate, he had been ill for 7 years, and silicosis was in the third stage, which was equivalent to the late stage.

The font on the certificate reminds him of "one year review". But less than a year later, he died. This hard-won paper has now become wrinkled and damp, and there are even yellow spots in some places.

At the end of 20 10, volunteers from a website recorded Liu Wang Zuhua's last appearance with a video camera. In the camera, he wore a cap and a heavy black coat, panting loudly, and a sense of humor flashed on his face when he spoke.

"All five of us are in this business, and one of us died." He thought for a moment, opened his eyes wide and added, "He has been dead for five years."

After the group fight, three young people in the village died in a daze before they knew what was wrong with them.

If it weren't for the appearance of Zhang Haichao, a native of Henan, they might have waited longer for the truth. In 2009, Zhang Haichao, a 28-year-old boy from Henan Province, tried to prove that he had pneumoconiosis in this extreme way. After his story was reported by the media, the employer paid 610.5 million yuan for work-related injury compensation.

At that time, families in the mountains of Sichuan could hardly survive. Lao Liu's condition is getting worse and worse. Every once in a while, Wang will step on the muddy road and walk for two hours to the village to buy medicine for his son. The monthly medicine fee is six or seven hundred yuan. He borrowed 654.38 million yuan from his sister, and he hasn't paid it back yet.

Workers in the same village saw the news of Zhang Haichao on their mobile phones, only to know that the occupational diseases they thought they could only "admit their bad luck" were also work-related injuries and could be compensated. But they didn't sign a labor contract with the mine owners at the beginning, and these mine owners disappeared long after the mine was rectified. Dozens of sick workers in Muchuan County signed a letter to the Ministry of Health, which was quickly approved. They took the "red-headed document" to the Bureau of Letters and Calls to open a certificate, and rented a big truck to Leshan CDC for identification.

After filming CT, a doctor came out and said to them in the corridor, "You dozens of people have problems. You have to hurry. "

At that time, there were 47 pneumoconiosis patients diagnosed by medical appraisal in Muchuan County. Wang Zuquan has stage II silicosis, and so does his neighbor Li Shuquan. Wang Zuhua, the old six, is already in the third stage of silicosis.

Old six doesn't have much time. Wang sent someone to make a coffin and stopped in the house. The diagnosis proved that it did not bring substantial help. The little man who likes to tell jokes didn't say everything in the end. He was very uncomfortable, crawling around in bed, trying to stab himself in the chest with a knife.

"I'm finished, absolutely finished." After he woke up, he said uneasily to his eldest brother, "If I die, you should take care of your parents more. I am dead, what will they do in the future? "

Speaking of these things, Wang Zuquan bowed his head and sighed heavily. "Hey, they are all dead, and they don't know how to die in the future."

Yang Caishu stayed at the bedside of his youngest son for several nights. Wang Gang replaced her, and Lao Liu opened her eyes and saw her mother, shouting "Mom-".

20111/October 3 1, two days before the Spring Festival. Lao Liu lay in bed, his neck moaning all day, and let his father hold him to relieve himself. The 40-year-old man lost only 60 kilograms. When he reached the toilet, Lao Liu couldn't solve it, so Wang took him back to the house. He wanted to rest his son on a bamboo chair, but Lao Liu slipped to the ground. Wang turned around and found that his son had stopped breathing.

"Who knows that he is dead." After Wang calmly finished what happened that day, he suddenly said with a heavy voice, "This disease won't die, but it's better!" Then, he sat by the brazier and restored the silence of the past.

The day after Liu's death is New Year's Eve. Neighbors helped carry his coffin to the bamboo forest and buried it, not far from No.5. When the neighbors were sent away, it was the time of the New Year's Eve dinner, and the family had no appetite, so they just got some leftovers and ate them. In their memory, the night that should have been lively was very cold, and there was rain and snow in the sky.

"Afraid of what? If you want to go this way, you still have to go after all. "

Lao Liu left with the dust in his lungs, and he also left the gray in the house.

So the family bid farewell to the cracked adobe house. After the Wenchuan earthquake, they built a spacious new house next to the old house with government subsidies. There is also a festive couplet on the door of the new home: "Go out for money, get what you want, start a business at home", and horizontally approve the words "happy home".

But it was misfortune that greeted them in the end. Lao Liu died before the new house was painted. The walls keep the original color of cement, and the room looks gray.

For half a year, Yang Caishu was talking to his neighbors with red eyes. At last she recovered, and she fell in the vegetable field again, half unconscious. After leaving the hospital, her waist could not be straightened, so she had to rely on the bamboo pole in her hand to support her body.

Afraid that she would be sad, Wang and his eldest son built a screen with plastic paper and bamboo poles to block the door of their house, so that they could not see the old grave No.5 and the new grave No.6 when they went out.

But Yang Caishu's heart is broken. Once, I took her out for a walk. The old couple went down the mountain with bamboo poles. Yang Caishu, who was walking in front, suddenly said, "I don't want to live, so I might as well plant it." The king advised her, "What I didn't eat before has come back to life. Life is so good now, do you want to die? "

Wang's heart is actually hard. His wife is very ill, so he takes on all the work in the family. At 5 o'clock in the morning, he will get up, make a fire, boil water, cook, and sometimes cut some bamboo up the mountain. He 12 years old worked in the field, and now his body can't stand it.

The old man's eyes are not working. He can only see the phone number by multiplying it several times and copying it on the wall. But everything about Yang Caishu, he is nimble. There are guests at home these days. When he saw his wife eating only vegetarian food in front of him at the dinner table, he leaned over and put a meat pie in her bowl. After a while, he found his wife sitting alone in the corner, turned around and took out a charcoal basin from the kitchen.

Wang also carried the debts owed by his son when he was treating the disease. His hope for life is as simple as "paying back the money quickly". But when the foreign guests at home wanted to give him the money, the old man stepped back and retreated to the corner. He waved, raised his chin and said, "This is your personal money. I can't stand it. "

The occupational disease diagnosis certificate did not make them defend their rights smoothly. The mine in Ganluo county has long been taken back by the government for auction. The new boss said that these historical debts had nothing to do with them.

Wang Zuquan and them went to the Ganluo County Court to sue, and the other party refused to accept it; I went to the province to petition, and the people in the bureau of letters and calls said, "This will be solved by the local government"; Back in Muchuan, the government official added: "Our local government is in trouble, so we can only report to our superiors and ask for instructions."

Even the villagers who once envied them sarcastically said, "It's no use looking for the government. What does your illness have to do with the government? "

Muchuan County, which1968+got rid of poverty in the mid-1990s, also felt "quite embarrassed". The director of the county bureau of letters and calls explained: "They asked for compensation from work-related injury insurance, and we can't solve it. We can only care about their lives, medical care and children's schooling. This is a cross-regional matter and must be solved by Ganluo. We also hope that through the media appeal, the other party will recognize this account. There is nothing we can do now, which is very embarrassing. "

In Ganluo, at least hundreds of pneumoconiosis patients are waiting for "recognition".

Wang Zuquan's illness worsened while waiting. When others take pictures of him, he tries to look energetic: he holds his arms and puts his fingers on the seams of his trousers, but his back just can't stretch straight. Every night, he can only sleep for two hours and stay uncomfortable. It didn't rain the next day, and his lungs were more accurate than the weather forecast on TV. He told others that he was over it. "You can't die, you can't live, you have to eat. You have to eat anyway. "

"Afraid of what? If you want to go this way, you still have to go after all. " He said.

Since the diagnosis of pneumoconiosis, Wang Zuquan bid farewell to cigarettes, wine and peppers, and even the mutton soup that he used to love most could not be drunk. Some workers joked that the biggest regret of getting this disease is that "there is no chance to be spicy and delicious."

In 20 12, muchuan county government set up a special relief fund of 200,000 yuan for these pneumoconiosis patients to go to the Fourth People's Hospital of West China for treatment. Wang Zuquan went to Chengdu to wash his lungs through this money. Having lost two younger brothers in succession, he has no hope, but the doctor told him, "it is better to wash."

Wang Zuquan washed for more than 4 hours, and after waking up from general anesthesia, he had no strength. The nurse brought a glass bottle and showed it to him in the hospital bed. The water inside is black, and a lot of "garbage" sinks at the bottom of the bottle.

"Look, this is the water you washed out." She said.

It's almost 10 years since Wang Zuquan left the mine. He finally saw the dust that they despised, but he took the lives of his two younger brothers and his health.

"We are here today, and we may not be alive next year or the year after."

In a few days, it will be New Year's Eve again, but this family has no taste of Chinese New Year. Wang is going to kill chickens. He has no strength to raise pigs any more. The bacon hanging on the beams was carried by his daughter from the foot of the mountain. He is not going to set off firecrackers this year, because his wife is hard of hearing and he is not in the mood.

It has been two years since Liu died. Now, weeds and moss have grown on his grave. No one in the family took the initiative to mention it. Wang Zuquan's son, who works in Chengdu, came back to see it and felt a little guilty. This 19-year-old young man left home without reading this book. He said to his father, "Uncle Liu's grave is a pile of dirt. In the future, I will make money and build him a brick. "

The big house at the foot of Wangzuquan Mountain, once envied by villagers, has also become a ruin. Now, he is the only one living in it. Sundries are piled up everywhere in the house, and the roof leaks when it rains. I have to live in my parents' house on the mountain these days because I accidentally fell down the mountain on my motorcycle and hurt my head and knees. He is going to rent a house in 180 yuan, which is almost uninhabitable.

"I will die one day, I can't die in this room. Brothers and sisters will have opinions. " Sitting by the brazier of his parents' house, he whispered. He has already lost his ability to work, and now he lives on the monthly subsidy from the county government in 300 yuan and the minimum living allowance of 100 yuan.

Wang Zuquan, who has washed his lungs, still has no spirit. He always "sighs", thinking that lung lavage is actually "not very effective". When he hears that lung lavage needs to be maintained, he is even more afraid to wash it again. He has no plans for the future. "It doesn't matter whether it's today or tomorrow. Anyway, you know you will die sooner or later. " He bent down and said. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon, it was a little dark in the room, and the charcoal in the brazier burned to ashes.

Compared with fragile lungs, Wang Zuquan is more worried about another thing: "We are dying less and less. If one day the policy is gone, no one will take care of us. We don't have work-related injury insurance yet. If it is solved, we will not worry. "

Three years after occupational disease identification, three people died in the village, including the Wangs. More people died, and everyone can't remember for days. This afternoon, the Wangs gathered around the brazier, arguing endlessly about the time when a workman died.

"twelfth lunar month 20 1 1." "It must be 20 12 years 1 month." "It's winter moon anyway!"

Neighbor Li Shuquan was there that day. He reached out his left hand and snapped his fingers, concluding his speech: "There are 15 pneumoconiosis patients in our village, and there are still 8 at present. I calculated that Fu Daijin, Chen Xiepei, Shao, Du and Chen Xiezhong here died seven times! " Every time he puts down a finger, it means the death of a life.

"We people are here today, and we may not be alive next year or the year after." Wang Zuquan hunched his back and added.

The room was silent.