GMA: Auto Plant Death Linked to Legionnaires' Disease

C L E V E L A N D, March 16 -- For 30 years Donald Tafoya loved his job, but what killed him a week ago may have been some bacteria he picked up at the auto plant he worked at.

Tafoya is one of four workers in a Ford Motor Company plant in Cleveland who health officials have confirmed as having contracted Legionnaires' disease. He is the only one who has died.

The disease is spread only by breathing a mist of contaminated water, such as from heating and air-conditioning units. Ford has closed the Cleveland Casting Plant while the Centers for Disease Control join with state and local health officials to track down the source of the contamination.

Meanwhile, the plant's 2500 workers wait, and wonder, about returning to their jobs.

Cuyahoga County Health Commissioner Timothy Horgan said it is possible thesource of the water-born bacteria that causes the disease could be a plant cooling tower.

Obviously the steam towers, cooling tanks, and other open areas with warm water are being investigated and getting a lot of attention," said Horgan on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "We have no knowledge right now that there's an actual culprit in the plant that we're looking at first and foremost."

Two Legionnaires' disease victims who worked at the plant were hospitalized, and the third was at home Thursday after previously being diagnosed.

"This disease will never go away — what happens is that periodically it gets focused in a particular place, and the media looks at it and we are reminded of the fact that it can crop up at any time and does often," said ABCNEWS' Dr. Tim Johnson on Good Morning America.

Johnson says the good news is that we know how to identify it and treat it quickly these days.

"Usually we get on top of these things very quickly, treat people quickly, and minimize the damage," said Johnson. "But it's a very serious disease when it gets into the lungs, causing pneumonia."

More Cases?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has teamed up with the Ohio Department of Health to investigate 10 other possible cases of the disease in workers who had pneumonia. Health investigators were securing water samples from the plant's shower stalls, drinking fountains, and other areas where there is water to pinpoint the source.