Daniel “Red” Busby remembers cutting firewood up Rainey Creek near the vermiculite mine in Libby, and the sparkly frost-like dust that swirled in the air every time a tree was felled.

Cutting wood was just one of several points of asbestos exposure for the 61-year-old former railroad worker.

Asbestos-laced vermiculite routinely spilled out of boxcars, and Busby repaired railroad tracks.

“I was digging in it all the time,” he recalled. “To this days  the tracks are contaminated.”

He came to Libby in 1983 and lived just a mile from the mine. Busby also made occasional trips to the former Champion International building where vermiculite and lumber was sold and as Busby recalled, “the whole building was covered with asbestos.”

His wife encouraged him to get screened in 2000 after the magnitude of the Libby asbestos exposure came to light.

“Being a guy, I was putting it off,” he said. “I knew my breathing was getting bad. She coerced me in 2001 to go in for the government study and they found out the problem with my lungs.”

Busby’s lung capacity is now down to 33 percent of normal. He’s on night-time oxygen.

Less than a year after his diagnosis, Busby had to retire from his railroad job.

“I used to be very active; now I have to hire kids to take care of things,” he lamented. “You’re limited as to what you can do.”

Busby’s wife died not long ago, a loss that’s still too painful for him to talk about.

He devoted himself full-time to care for her care during his illness, even giving up crucial workouts at the local fitness center that were helping keep his asbestos disease from getting considerably worse. He was left with a mountain of medical bills to pay with his fixed income.

Still, Busby is not one to wallow in self-pity.

“I have to be positive because I know I’m not the only one to go through this,” he said.

What bugs him the most now is that 10 years after media reports put the national spotlight on Libby’s asbestos woes, there’s still no toxicology report that says exactly how poisonous the asbestos dust really is, or how much it takes to make a person sick.

“I think it’s very important to get it cleaned up for our kids,” he said, insisting that the EPA needs to get the cleanup done properly the first time around.

Busby is among the hundreds of people who have sued W.R. Grace & Co., the corporation that owned and operated the mine for its last 27 years. His lawsuit also cites the state of Montana, BNSF Railway Co., Champion International and Maryland Casualty, Grace’s insurance company, as defendants.

“Who’s to say when these lawsuits will be settled?” he said.

And even if he and others see some kind of settlement, Busby wonders what will be there to help future generations who may need health care for asbestos disease.

GEORGE MASTERS also tries to keep his chin up despite his asbestos disease.

The 65-year-old Libby native didn’t work at the Grace mine, but he grew up near the railroad tracks where boxcars of uncovered vermiculite chugged past. He jumped in the piles of vermiculite in the neighborhood, played ball on the contaminated Little League fields.

He was driving truck in California eight years ago when the coughing fits got so bad he had to seek medical help.

“My lungs are completely circled with it,” he said about the telltale scarring from sharp asbestos fibers. “My breathing is down but I’ve stayed stable the last two years. The athletic club has helped.”

Masters works out three times a week at the Montana Athletic Club in Libby, a popular spot for the town’s many asbestos victims.

“Some days are good; some days I’m begging for some wind,” he said. “I wear slip-on shoes because bending over is tough.”

Although retired, Masters still drives a school bus in Libby. He has adapted to everyday life, doing yard work with a chair nearby in case he gets winded.

“I don’t let it get ahold of me,” he said.

It puzzles Masters why some people get sick after breathing the deadly dust — and some don’t.

“There are guys I went to school with who worked up there [at the mine] and have nothing wrong with them,” he said.

In the face of adversity, though, Masters still jokes easily with the staff at the athletic club and puts on a happy face.

“The sad part,” he confided, “is you know you’re not going to get better.”

 Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com