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[Music] this young couple had everything successful careers money time to enjoy it and a home fit for a movie star
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then everything changed their three-year-old son developed serious respiratory problems
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and his father started showing signs of alzheimer's disease forensic scientists needed to know
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whether these illnesses were bad luck bad genes or something else [Music] dripping springs texas a town where you
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can enjoy the beauty of the texas hill country yet commute to downtown austin in just
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over half an hour [Music] melinda ballard fell in love with dripping springs and bought this
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georgian style mansion on 72 acres of land in 1994 she met ron allison after dating for less than a year the
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couple married it was everything i had ever wanted in a man very intelligent a real go-getter
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a workaholic which is what i am so we seem to match up pretty well in that regard um just a super guy
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we both had the same interest we both wanted to have a family i think that was the the
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key career-wise with similar interests melinda had been head of her own public relations business a firm she sold in
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1989 but she still continued her career i said as a board member of the bank and
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still represent a number of clients that are i guess holdovers from my company in in
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new york ron worked in investment banking and was head of corporate finance at his firm
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in 1996 melinda gave birth to their son rhys ron loved being a father and a weekend
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baseball coach then in february 1999 three-year-old reese developed what seemed like a flu
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he started having some respiratory problems and he would have a real hard time catching his
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breath and and we thought god maybe he's exercising too much or something the symptoms lingered
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one month later reece seemed to be getting worse not better initially we thought
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maybe it's because rhys is in preschool in nursery school and you know how kids
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just they constantly get contaminate one another with a little bug or virus doctors could find nothing wrong
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tests were inconclusive when he was taken for allergy tests those two were negative
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soon reese's problems move from respiratory to neurological reese who had learned his abcs from a to
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z suddenly couldn't get past d he was deteriorating quickly and we were taking
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him to doctor after doctor after doctor and they told us that something was wrong but they didn't know what it was
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when doctors came up empty a team of forensic scientists and epidemiologists had better luck
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[Music] melinda ballard was living a dream life she and her husband had a beautiful home
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a healthy adorable son and successful careers until their three-year-old son developed
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a serious illness i didn't know if he had some kind of rare disease that nobody had ever heard
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of i didn't know what to think but i knew it was getting worse and that we were
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not able at the time to get a handle on the situation reese was still asthmatic very asthmatic
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in fact he the pulmonologist said he had scarred lung tissue but still the cause couldn't be found
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it appeared to ron's co-workers that the stress associated with his son's illness
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was starting to get to him i was sitting at his desk and ron was looking at his computer
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screen which was unusual but when i walked closer to his desk i realized that he was staring at a
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blank screen and ron exhibited other symptoms he came out of the grocery store and could not remember where he had
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parked his car or what car he even drove it took him about five hours to come back from the grocery store when he it
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should have taken him 20 minutes and when he gets home everything's melted and he said i don't
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know i i'm having a i had a blackout or something i didn't know what was going on and
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the wheels were coming off and it was it was i was i was scared ron went to a neurologist for testing
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the results showed a dramatic decrease in his cognitive abilities my doctor sat me down and told me that i
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was about halfway through the progression of alzheimer's and that's based on my my neurological
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uh test results but that's all he could tell me is is that you're you're you're
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you're functioning on this level and it's uh seems to be getting worse but they didn't know
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exactly why or what to do about it on april 1 1999 melinda boarded a southwest airlines
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flight heading to little rock arkansas it was a flight that forever changed the course of her life
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a man named bill holder was assigned to the seat next to melinda on the way to dallas which was our first
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job i heard her talking to some people there sitting there by me and she was complaining about all
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these illnesses and problems that she and her family were having and without warning
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melinda fell ill and i kept coughing up blood and bill holder said to me lady what in the world's wrong with you
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and i said i really don't know i just asked her i said do you have a water leak at your house
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and she said yes i do i have several water leaks she told holder that a month earlier
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there was a leak in her home causing the downstairs floors to buckle a plumber repaired the leak which was in
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the water line leading to the refrigerator's ice maker holder began to suspect that it was a
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mold causing the family's illness holder owns the assured indoor air quality business that removes toxic mold
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from buildings [Music] but melinda dismissed this possibility she kept her home spotless and no one in
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her family tested positive for allergies the allergist did these little pinprick
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tests to determine whether or not we were allergic to mold and it came back that we weren't
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so i dismissed it as as our problem but during their conversation on the plane holder said something prophetic
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he's telling me these aren't allergens lady this is a poison now suspecting that there was some kind
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of mold behind a wall or above the ceiling somewhere ron and melinda decided not to take any
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chances and moved out of the main house into an apartment over the garage but even with the move
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ron's neurological problems continued to get worse at the office i would be on a a phone
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call and 10 or 20 minutes into the phone call just not have any idea what we discussed
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if there was some kind of mold behind a wall or ceiling how would investigators find it
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[Music] medical experts began to suspect that something in their home environment was
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making ron melinda and rhee sick the property included 72 acres there was a man-made pond that melinda
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stocked with swans and catfish a barn for horses a backyard gazebo and pool the house itself was enormous 12 000
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square feet modeled after the movie version of para scarlet o'hara's plantation home in gone with the wind
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it was lots of columns a georgian style home antebellum and it was just gorgeous
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scientific experts began to focus on the possibility that it was mold for mold to grow
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it requires water to be where it shouldn't be it requires cellulose which is a component of most building
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materials for example sheet rock ceiling tile pressed particle board and then a mold also needs the appropriate
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temperature and it needs oxygen melinda asked bill holder to inspect their home to see if he could find
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anything suspicious he started behind the refrigerator the location of the original water leak
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and under the first floor floorboards take clear cellophane tape push it on the suspect area
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and then attach it to a glass slide at the same time take a sterile cotton swab and lift some of the material off of
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that surface with a sterile cotton swab put it in a sterile container send it to the
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laboratory dr david strauss is a professor of microbiology and immunology at texas
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tech university i spent about a half an hour in the house and i was talking with bill mr
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holder and i said to him turn to him and i said bill i don't feel very good i
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said i got to get out of here and uh really just literally walked out the front door and pretty much collapsed i
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lost any any ability to stand without without aid the samples were processed at texas tech
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health sciences center technicians there sterilized the slides then examined them under a high powered
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microscope the cotton swab samples were transferred to petri dishes then put in an incubator for five to
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seven days if there were spores present they would grow mold which could be examined under
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the microscope most household molds are harmless but dr strauss found one type of mold in
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the home that was not harmless it was a toxic deadly mold known as stacky botrus
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[Music] experts believe stachybotrys spores exist on many building materials as long as those materials stay dry the
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spores don't present a problem but when the spores get wet from a leaky roof for example
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or in a dark moist environment and are near a paper product like drywall and insulation the spores multiply quickly
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and they produce a potentially deadly poison called mycotoxins mycotoxins are on the surface of these
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spores so when you inhale these fungal spores you're also taking the mycotoxins
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into your lungs as well later bill holder went back to conduct an airborne test canisters placed throughout the house
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capture any airborne spores which might be present a short time later melinda was notified of the results
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they informed us that it was literally everywhere and including in the apartment where we
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were living and for us to it'd be a good idea to leave to avoid the possibility of
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cross-contamination the family was told to leave the grounds immediately and to take nothing with
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them at that point we got the heck out of dodge we left with literally nothing from that
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home because of cross contamination we didn't want to bring a problem with us
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buildings never get better by themselves in fact if you leave a building alone that has mold infestation it gets worse
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melinda and ron hope the family's health problems would clear up once they left
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the house but they didn't ron is a bright bright guy but he's become almost
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um it it's very sad he carries a carries a little notebook in his pocket got his phone number car license number
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things of this nature and he's not a buffoon by any stretch you know but i know
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he's seriously affected by this ron is just really loves his son and on several occasions i would hear him
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talking about his son and he would say my son and stop because he didn't remember his
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son's name ron's memory problems forced him to resign from his firm reese continued to suffer from asthma
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and learning disabilities only melinda came through without permanent health problems doctors have
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no idea why toxic mold reproduces by shedding microscopic spores it can't be cleaned from surfaces
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because to do so would release thousands of spores into the air instead each piece of contaminated
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building material has to be dismantled sealed in air-tight plastic and carted away
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the question now was could the house be saved melinda and ron moved out of their dream home following
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the scientific diagnosis that it was infested with a potentially deadly mold growing behind the walls and ceilings
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the couple says that the first time they noticed any water damage was the leak behind the refrigerator which the
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plumber had fixed the leak had caused extensive damage to the flooring throughout the area
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the couple says they wanted to repair the water damage right away but their insurance company said no
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we had asked the insurance company in writing to allow us to begin repairs immediately
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and at least rip out some of the wet flooring and the insurance company said that if i
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had made repairs during their investigation that i would lose coverage scientific experts say that most
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household molds are harmless but with stachybotrys the mold must be removed immediately since it's capable
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of spreading the cost to eliminate all of the stachybotrys in ron and melinda's home
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was originally estimated to be one million dollars the insurance company offered less than
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two hundred thousand dollars while the two sides tried to reach a settlement construction experts found 13
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additional plumbing leaks and one roof leak in the home causing even more stachybotrys contamination
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they kept wanting to investigate claims which is their right and their duty to do
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but the problem is they would never allow us to begin making repairs the investigations and disputes over
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cost dragged on for two years by then experts concluded that the house and everything in it was so contaminated
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it was beyond repair to enter the house now melinda has to don a special suit and respirator to
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protect herself against the poisonous mold experts recommended that the home be demolished
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melinda and ron filed suit against their insurance company for the financial loss
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of their property the last thing i wanted to do was have to sue my insurance company
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but they left me no choice the suit argued that the insurance company knew or should have known about
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the potentially dangerous effects of delaying repairs to water damage inside of homes and buildings
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dr michael gray sees more than 150 patients a year who suffer from exposure to toxic molds
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i concluded that ron allison was definitely affected by the mycotoxins which he was exposed to in the context
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of his living environment in the house that they lived in in addition to medical experts ron's
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attorney presented epidemiological studies showing the relationship between tricathazine the toxin found in
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stachybotrys mold and mental functioning i was confident that we had found the kind of scientific information that
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would allow us to try this case to a jury ron and melinda were asking the insurance company for the cost of their
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home and property six million dollars the jury took two and a half days to come back with their verdict
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but it was not for the six million dollars melinda and ron asked for the jury awarded the couple
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32 million dollars it was a great relief to me that the jury system worked i was obviously relieved
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i had hoped that they would not get away with what they had done the verdict in this case is now on
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appeal the home once a showplace is now sitting abandoned it's been looted numerous times
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ron is learning to live with an impaired memory he enters his daily schedule into his
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hand-held computer each morning and relies on its alarm to help him stay on track
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to make certain that people know their rights relative to water damage in their home
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melinda created her own website policyholdersofamerica.org it's not just been a home
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that has been lost here it has been the health of a little boy and a a very energetic workaholic man
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who has lost his identity and i don't want to see this happen to any other family i can promise you that
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all of those medical doctors and quality scientists that have been involved in our case
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are my heroes they are our heroes [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] you