Cancer victim changed his own brakes for years

'What they (brake manufacturers) gave me is a death sentence'

By Carol Smith, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

That passion may have cost him his life.

In February, Mirante discovered he had mesothelioma, a nasty tumor that has wrapped itself around his rib and begun marching relentlessly through his chest. Mirante suspects he got the cancer, which is caused by asbestos, by changing his own brakes over the years.

Like many other workers of his generation, he may also have been exposed through proximity to asbestos-wrapped pipes, or home remodeling projects using asbestos joint compound to install wallboard.

But Mirante, still wiry and tough even after five regimens of chemotherapy and a lifetime limit's worth of radiation, is particularly angry about the brakes.

"I think they ought to send the companies to criminal court and put 'em away if not hang 'em," he said. "There can't be too strong a word. What they gave me is a death sentence. What gives them the privilege to kill people and get by with it?"

Mirante worked on his own cars to save money, but also to ensure the safety of his wife and two daughters.

"I loved foolin' around with cars, keeping them running," he said in an interview. "And when I did brakes, I knew it was done right."

Mirante believes he breathed asbestos-laden dust from the cars.

"They were asbestos brake linings, and I did a lot of brake jobs and tune-ups and stuff on my cars," he said in a recent deposition.

"You couldn't afford new cars in those days, so - we're talking back in the '50s and '60s there - sometimes you could buy a car for $100 or $200. So you'd buy one and keep it running, fix it up."

He doesn't recall being warned about asbestos in brakes. He didn't use a respirator or know not to breathe the dust.

In fact, he says ruefully, he just blew asbestos out of brake drums with his mouth. "That's how you'd do it. You'd sit there, have a little bit on there, and just by mouth (blow it off)."

And that wasn't all.

"With the new shoes, sometimes, they wouldn't go on too easy . . . So you'd be whacking them with a hammer or pushing on them with your feet. Sometimes you'd take it back off and you'd have to file this outer edge," he said, running his fingers along the edge of a brake shoe to demonstrate.

"In fact, if you were lazy and you were sticking your head around the wheel well fender and just kind of leaving them (the brake shoes) on there - once you got them on there it's tough to take it all back off again, so sometimes you would stick your head (in) and be really close to it (while filing)."

He regrets that now.

"The hardest thing? Probably knowing you're going to die . . . because that's pretty much a definite with this mesothelioma," he said, looking down, his jaw clenched to hide his emotions.

Up until recently, Mirante was still running around Green Lake several times a week to keep his baseball weight of 162 pounds. He still has a gym membership.

"You work for 40-something years to retire so you can do your camping, which we do a lot, and travel. My wife and I both wanted to go to Europe and see where our ancestors were born and back East and travel. That's all down the tube. Can't do it.

"It makes you mad, mad that I did everything right. I tried to eat right and do everything right and now all of a sudden - not because of me, it's because of the asbestos companies - I'm going to die."

Mirante's Seattle oncologists have said there's nothing more they can do. He is back East now "looking for some hope."

He said in his deposition that if he'd been warned that putting brakes on would kill him, he wouldn't have done it.

"I'm stupid," he said with a wry chuckle, "but I'm not that stupid."

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