Image Credit: WKBN 
A family pet inside a home near the toxic Ohio train derailment site has died following complications related to chemical exposure.
An East Palestine family out to dinner says they rushed home the night the train derailment happened to evacuate family and pets.
The family later noticed their cat Leo was experiencing labored breathing.
“When we got here, I noticed that he was having a hard time breathing,” Andrea Belden and Zack Cramer told local Ohio CBS affiliate WKBN. “It was very fast. It was very labored. His heart rate was up. I thought that he was just having a panic attack.”
The following morning after giving him food and water they found Leo hadn’t moved all night, so they took him to the vet.
“They thought he was having an asthma attack then they started to tell me, ‘Well, it seems to be a run-of-the-mill congestive heart failure,’” described Belden.
Animal doctors attempted in vain to remove fluid from around Leo’s heart. They also discovered his liver enzymes were seven times their normal rate.
“When a cat has congestive heart failure, as was explained to us by the vet, that doesn’t affect the liver whatsoever,” explained Leo’s owner.
Vets at the Pittsburgh Veterinary Specialty Clinic concluded Leo’s ailments “could be due to vinyl chloride gases,” one of the highly toxic commercial chemicals leaked during the train derailment.
“They said, well, it must have been vinyl chloride poisoning that exacerbated his heart condition because they think that he had a genetic heart condition beforehand that was underlying that may not have been triggered without the vinyl chloride,” Belden told WKBN.
Belden also said after racking up a $10,000 veterinarian bill she attempted to get compensation from Norfolk Southern, the operator of the train that derailed, however, the company denied their claim.
“Norfolk Southern told me that that was not an emergency and that was not something that they were going to look at right now or reimburse for right now. But they were going to go ahead and entertain that in the future if I file a damaged property claim,” Belden said.
The family opted to put Leo down to ease his suffering.
Leo’s story comes as other animals including foxes, fish and chickens in the nearby area have also exhibited symptoms of toxic exposure, with mass die-offs also occurring.
The heart-wrenching anecdote illustrates the toxicity of the chemicals spewed in the derailment and burned off in controlled releases, which evidently can still affect indoor organisms.
Now, as the airborne toxic event continues to spread into nearby states, it’s becoming clearer the disaster needs to be addressed on a federal level.
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