A secondary school teacher was forced to stop working after developing an incurable ear condition he believes was caused by surfing in sewage-polluted water.
Reuben Santer told Sky News he has had “an awful nine months” after contracting Meniere’s disease, which has caused him to have severe dizzy spells and hearing loss.
His case has been highlighted by Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) who say reports to them of being sick after entering the water have nearly tripled in the last year.
SAS says that as well as being an environmental problem, the sewage scandal is increasingly a public health one too.
‘Traumatic experience’
Reuben’s problems started last November when the 33-year-old developed an infection in his middle ear after a surf at Saunton Beach in Devon.
“I had this really loud, intense ringing in one side the day after a surf,” he told Sky News.
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“I thought I was having a haemorrhage; I had no idea what was going on. I went to the doctor and they said it was a middle ear infection likely caused by dirty water but it’s impossible to prove.”
Reuben’s symptoms went away with antibiotics but he fell ill a month later after going back in the water for the first time. He only realised afterwards that a sewage pollution warning had been in place and a day later he was “throwing up, having intense rotational vertigo, I completely lost my balance”. It emerged he had labyrinthitis in his inner ear.
“You can normally recover from that but somehow it triggered Meniere’s disease which is the same symptoms but chronically. It doesn’t have a known cure.
“I’ve had a really awful nine months, the worst thing is I lost my job.
“Being a teacher is stressful, I could not handle being in a classroom and having unpredictable attacks of vertigo…when everything around you is spinning. It was pretty traumatic.
“I haven’t been going out on my own, I haven’t been driving when I was previously an independent person so that’s been pretty tough. I also have hearing loss in my left ear and roaring tinnitus and sound sensitivity.”
Reports of sickness up by nearly a third
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17:40
What caused Britain’s sewage crisis?
While the definite cause of Reuben’s condition is not provable, Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) is concerned about a rise in people getting sick from dirty water.
In its annual Water Quality Report released this week, the campaign group said between October 2022 and September 2023 1,924 people reported getting ill after entering the water – up from 720 the year previously.
Of those who visited a doctor, three out of four people said the doctor attributed their illness to exposure to sewage-polluted waters.
The illnesses caused an estimated five years worth of sick days and the majority of cases happened at bathing sites considered to be “excellent” quality, the SAS report said.
Surfer ‘horrified’ to contract parasite
Naomi Jenkin, 37, was ill for three weeks after she contracted the parasite cryptosporidium following a surf in Newquay in the spring.
“It’s something that you get from water that’s contaminated with sewage,” she said. “I was horrified.”
She said her symptoms included being “doubled up in pain and feeling nauseous”.
“I had to just stop work and basically take myself to bed. I had a really bad stomach upset, and it basically went on for three weeks in total, so it really affected my life quite a lot.
“It’s also knocked my confidence to go back into the water.”
In some cases, sicknesses caused by suspected sewage pollution have been so severe people had to be hospitalised.
Robbie Bowman fell ill a few hours after going for a swim with a scrape on his leg in Cardiff and was found by his son “lying on the floor, waving my arms about, not making any sense”.
In hospital he was diagnosed with the bacterial infection cellulitis and kept on intravenous antibiotics for a week as doctors feared he had sepsis.
He told Sky News that he spent most of August “with my leg up trying to encourage the healing of my skin and the blisters on the back of my calf” and his skin is still red. A possible cause was given as Golden Staph, which can be caused by swimming in dirty water.
“It has quite massively impacted me,” he said. “I don’t trust the water anymore. That for me is the biggest shame.”
General Election ‘tipping point for change’
Giles Bristow, the CEO of Surfers Against Sewage, said the rise in sickness reports could be due to more people being aware of the sewage scandal and linking their health issues to that.
But he said more people are using water for recreational activities at the same time as rampant sewage dumping so “it’s bound to be that more people are getting ill”.
The SAS’s report found that untreated sewage was discharged across waterways in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales more than 399,864 times – over 1,000 times a day.
Mr Bristow said the report “reveals the complacency and disregard of governments, water companies and regulators towards the health of rivers and coastlines in the UK – and by extension people’s health”.
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4:24
Huge sewage spill captured in cornwall
With a general election looming, he called on all parties to adopt the SAS’s End Sewage Pollution Manifesto – a five point plan that includes cracking down on the profits made by water companies and ensuing regulators have resources to enforce pollution laws.
“This is an absolutely key issue for the public and we’ve got a mandate for change like never before,” he said.
“You wouldn’t put up with a Victorian health system where you turn up to your doctors and they give you a leech. So why should we put up with turning up to use our rivers and sees and finding it’s a Victorian system that discharges pollution into our waterways?”
“This plan includes targets so strict they are leading to the largest infrastructure programme in water company history – £60bn over 25 years – which in turn will result in hundreds of thousands fewer sewage discharges,” the spokesperson said.
Industry body Water UK has said it is prepared to almost double that spending to pay for upgrades and cut sewage discharges.
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The issue looks set to become a key battleground when voters next go to the polls, especially in rural and coastal areas traditionally represented by Conservative MPs – but which the Lib Dems are looking to take.
Tim Farron, the Lib Dems’ environmental spokesperson, called the SAS report an “insult” to people “who want to swim in their local river or sea without getting sick”, and called on the Conservatives to “ban bonuses for water company bosses until this filthy practice is brought to an end”.
Labour’s shadow environment secretary Steve Reed said the water industry “is broken after 13 years of Tory government” and Labour “will give Ofwat the powers to ban the payment of bonuses to water bosses until they have cleared up their filth”.
“Every morning I wake up and there is a small part of me that thinks, ‘Is today the day I’m going to be diagnosed with some sort of cancer?'”
This is the question Susan Lee asks herself every day. It is part of the mental anguish of living with Hepatitis C.
Susan was born with Von Willebrand disease.
As a child, her blood clotting disorder was treated with a product called Factor 8. It was supposed to revolutionise treatment for haemophiliacs.
Instead the American product farmed from prisoners and drug addicts was infected with HIV and Hepatitis. It was never screened or treated before being injected into the veins of patients.
The risks were known. Susan’s father raised concerns.
“I remember specifically on one occasion he went into the consulting room and spoke to my consultant,” says Susan.
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“[He] said, ‘I’m very worried about this, and I want you to let me know if Susan has or will receive any American blood products’.
“And he said to my father, ‘Absolutely not’.”
However, at 14, Susan discovered she had been infected with Hepatitis C, like thousands of other patients in the worst NHS treatment scandal in history.
Susan believes patients like her were exposed to great risk and potential death to increase profits for the companies that were producing these blood products.
“I think unfortunately it always comes down to cost implications. And we know that American blood products were cheaper from those big pharmaceutical companies.
“We know there were other treatment options available. There were German products that were out there and could have been used, but at a higher price point, and they were not chosen.”
The Hepatitis C infection has had a devasting impact on every part of Susan’s life. She has had to give up her career as a barrister.
“It’s been a really, really difficult time for us as a family. And it’s intergenerational because we were given these products to take home, my parents were taught how to inject. My mother has a huge feeling of guilt surrounding that,” she says.
“Three weeks ago, she sat me down and said, ‘I’m so terribly sorry.’
“I said, ‘You’ve got absolutely nothing to be sorry for. It was nothing to do with you. You did your best’.
“Also my children, from having witnessed the times that I was really, really sick, you know, my daughters asking me, ‘Mummy, why can’t you run in the school races and for sports day?’
“Because I could barely lift my head off the pillow to get out of bed to be there.”
Later this morning, Susan and the thousands of other victims of the infected blood scandal will get answers to the decades-long search for the truth.
At Westminster’s Methodist’s Central Hall just after midday, Sir Brian Langstaff will deliver his report into the infected blood scandal. It is expected to be damning.
Des Collins, senior partner of Collins Solicitors which represents 1,500 victims and their families, said the inquiry chair is likely to hold many people accountable.
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“If you are going to point the finger at someone, you’ve got to give them notice and it’s that notice process which has delayed [the report] probably for the last six months. So a lot of people will have the finger pointed at them.
“They will be held accountable for each individual part of the scandal, which is appropriate insofar as their involvement is concerned.
“I don’t think we’re going to get the finger pointed at one person saying, ‘You are responsible for the whole thing,’ because there are so many people involved in it and they’re all making individual decisions.”
The significance of this moment cannot be overstated.
The great hall will be full of people infected with deadly diseases in secret trials, bereaved parents who saw their children die and all of the others affected by this preventable tragedy.
The atmosphere will be charged with emotion, anger and hopefully relief.
The delay in delivering justice has compounded the grief and anguish felt by so many. After being lied to and ignored for decades, they finally have their day.
This report must mark the beginning of the end of this shameful scandal.
Sky News will have full coverage of the infected blood report on TV, online and on the Sky News app today
“Losing Gary, my soul mate, was beyond painful,” says Kathryn Croucher, whose husband died aged 42 in 2010.
“Every day was a struggle dealing with the knowledge he was HIV and Hepatitis C positive.”
“Mum always said she was given a death sentence,” recalls Ronan Fitzgerald. His mother, Jane, died aged 54 after being infected with Hepatitis C when she was 16. “It was a ticking time bomb.”
Sky News will have full coverage of the infected blood report on TV, online and on the Sky News app today.
More than 30,000 Britons were infected with HIV and Hepatitis C after being given contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.
Around 3,000 people have died as a result of the scandal, while many more still live under the shadow of health problems, debilitating treatments and stigma. Now, the findings of a public inquiry, first announced in 2017, will finally be published.
These are 100 faces of infected blood victims that either they, or their families, have shared with Sky News.
“I’m never drinking tap water again,” Kayley Lewis says.
“My symptoms have made me lose a stone in two weeks.”
Ms Lewis and her two children have been suffering from diarrhoea, vomiting and stomach cramps for over a fortnight – since South West Water found small traces of the parasite cryptosporidium in the Hillhead reservoir.
“I can’t trust them [South West Water] again.
“I might start using tap water for dishes… but definitely never to drink. Ever.
“I’ve been completely put off now… especially because of how poorly it makes you feel.
“I just don’t think I could ever try and risk going back to that.”
At least 46 people are confirmed to have the disease, while as many as 70 other cases of diarrhoea and vomiting are also under investigation, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said.
South West Water (SWW) has repeatedly apologised – telling Sky News today that they are working “around the clock” to get all households back to using safe water again.
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This could be as early as this Wednesday, drought and resilience director at SWW David Harris told me.
“We’re looking at somewhere between mid to late next week before we’ll be in a position to be able to responsibly lift that boil water notice.”
So far, 14,500 households in the Alston supply area can drink their tap water without boiling it first – as advised by SWW.
However, some 2,500 homes in Hillhead, upper parts of Brixham and Kingswear have been told to continue boiling – and cooling – their water supplies before drinking it.
Steve Price, who runs the Station Guest House B&B near Brixham, said he lost a couple of thousand pounds in bookings due to – understandably – paranoid customers.
“Losses we anticipate are roughly around £2000 from people that have cancelled and directly stated that the cancellation was due to the water situation.
“So we would anticipate that at the bare minimum as compensation.”