A loving wife died of asbestos-related lung cancer caused by washing her electrician husband’s clothes when he came home from work, it emerged today.
Yvonne Moaby spent years cleaning husband John’s work overalls after his shifts at Southern Electricity Board during the 1960’s
She shook and brushed the clothes before washing them but was unaware she was inhaling the lethal fibres.
Yvonne, of Quenington, near Cirencester, Glos., died aged 66 of mesothelioma – a form of cancer that is almost always caused by exposure to asbestos.
Husband John, 68, says he plans to seek compensation over the death after an inquest into her death heard the fibres caused her death.
He said his wife had been fit and healthy throughout her life and had never come into direct contact with asbestos.
John said: ”But I worked as an electrician for Southern Electricity Board where I had responsibility for taking out storage heaters which contained asbestos.
”I worked in a dusty environment which would cover my clothes. I would go home and my wife would wash them.
”She would shake them out and the dust would fly off.”
John worked as an electrician during the 1960s when he worked with storage heaters which relied on the lethal substance as insulation.
Wife Yvonne washed her husband’s clothes every day after work for four years.
Her GP, Dr Anne Gardiner, said she had complained of chest pains when she walked and exercised in 2005 but tests for cardiovascular disease came back negative.
But she was diagnosed with terminal mesothelioma in 2009 and – despite undergoing gruelling chemotherapy in February this year – she died at home in May.
Recording a verdict of accidental death, Gloucestershire coroner Alan Crickmore said her death was caused as a direct result of unknowingly inhaling the fatal fibres.
He said: ”Mrs Moaby was enveloped in dust when washing her husband?s clothes. I am satisfied that the cause of her mesothelioma was her exposure to asbestos.
”She died as so many housewives do when they come into contact with dust after shaking out laundry.”
Speaking after the inquest, former parish councillor John said his wife has been ”his rock” and that the family would be seeking compensation.
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