Christine Battaglia, 37, has been suffering from shortness of breath, sore throat, rash, and a host of other symptoms since the chemical train crash in eastern Palestine on February 3.
For Christine Battaglia, life has been “like waking up in a nightmare every day” since the derailment of the East Palestine, Ohio train last month.
The 37-year-old mum is concerned that her exposure to chemical clouds in the immediate aftermath of the accident and the three days the fire continued after that could have a lasting impact on her health.
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, Battaglia shared medical records that show she sought care from both her doctor and an urgent care clinic for shortness of breath, sore throat, rashes, burning skin, and fractures she had never experienced before.
She also experienced muscle aches, fatigue and a host of other symptoms attributed to an allergic reaction to “environmental exposure”.
Battaglia was at her home in the city, just 1.3 miles from the scene of the accident, the night it happened and felt the tremor under her feet.
“We heard the fire engines respond and it seemed like a great response to a medical condition or a car accident,” she said.
I thought maybe one of the businesses caught fire at first, and then one of my neighbors said one of the trains caught fire.
That’s when I made a decision that I regret to this day.
The 37-year-old single mother hopped in her car and drove to the scene as the night sky was lit up by a Norfolk Southern train carrying a toxic soup of carcinogenic and corrosive chemicals.
Extraordinary images shared by witnesses with DailyMail.com show the scale of the fiery avalanche from the ground as train wreckage released chemicals and toxins into the air.
A resident who lived near the site stated that he heard several loud and fast “thumps” at the time of the accident, followed by the sound of a siren.
She said what she saw was “like a hole from hell”.
“It was on fire,” she said, “and all this smoke was coming up and clouds of white dust were falling.”
Now she worries that she and her eight-year-old son, Grayson, will have to leave the home she grew up in and the neighborhood she loves because they have fallen ill.
She does not trust official assurances that anything is safe and is not willing to risk their health in the future.
She said: ‘I think it’s very concerning because there was a fallout from the initial fire and then a fallout from the controlled launch that looked like an atomic bomb had gone off.
We stayed at a hotel in Sandusky during that but within a couple of days of my return I started having symptoms again.
Medical records shared with DailyMail.com show Christine sought care for a range of symptoms attributed to an allergic reaction to “environmental exposure”
The young mother said that the two doctors she saw identified her health problems as a result of chemical inhalation
Christine, who says she has suffered from skin outbreaks and rashes, fears exposure to toxic chemicals has permanently affected her health.
It felt like my skin was on fire, I broke out in a severe rash, my skin blisters and peels, and my eyes and throat were burning. I felt short of breath, tired and had digestive issues too.
I have been tested, and do not have COVID, strep throat, or the flu. Two doctors told me it was because of chemical inhalation.
Today, she said, she faces the grim prospect of leaving her “perfect” childhood home, withdrawing her son from the school he loves, and starting over in a new place.
I feel like I’m being completely uprooted. Starting from scratch isn’t cheap, but because I’m outside the magic one-mile line they’ve drawn for the evacuation zone, I don’t know who’s going to help me.
Images and first-hand accounts shared with DailyMail.com reveal the devastating impact of a train derailment disaster in eastern Palestine that lit up a toxic soup of carcinogenic and corrosive chemicals in the night sky on February 3.
Clean-up and excavation efforts are still underway at the site after five weeks, and the remains of burnt train cars and other debris still lie on the tracks.
The site of the catastrophic anomaly (pictured February 19) became ground ground as a mixture of six highly toxic chemicals seeped into soil and water.
I’m on 30 days of emergency leave from work but that ends March 22nd and I have to get us settled in and into a routine with school and childcare for Grayson by then,” said Batiglia, who works in sales with a shipping company.
For now, she said: “I’m trying to find out who to talk to at Norfolk Southern to see who can help.
Nobody came to our door – not the Environmental Protection Agency, not the Red Cross, not the governor. Nobody explained anything to us.
I am sick, my son is sick and I am trying to find out as much as I can but it is not easy.
Honestly, it’s like waking up every day in a nightmare. We feel lonely and forgetful.
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