Ask a doctor on the topic of Internal medicine

Inhaled asbestos dust?

April 17, 2011 | 20,00 EUR | answered by Dr. med. Olaf Stephan

Hello!

Four months ago, we bought a house with a large garden. The previous owner had not taken care of it at all, so there is a lot of work to be done.

Today, I was in the process of clearing the second-to-last flower bed of overgrowth when I discovered something hard while digging. I accidentally hit 2-3 pieces with the spade and found 2 more broken pieces in the ground...

Then the shock hit: My grandmother came, looked at it, and said "those look like asbestos corrugated roof sheets"... great... asbestos waste in the garden.

I had originally planned to plant a vegetable bed there, but these corrugated things are "installed" across the entire 10 meters in the ground (of course, right in the middle of the flower bed... for whatever reason)...

I am worried about my health... Asbestos should not be hit, cut, sawed, drilled, or anything like that... and I stupidly hit it multiple times in a 30cm distance, causing fragments to break off.

What about my lungs, should I be very worried?

Thank you!

Dr. med. Olaf Stephan

Dear Inquirer,

You don't have to worry at all, if there was any exposure to asbestos dust, it is so minimal that there are no harmful effects to be feared. To reach health-relevant asbestos exposures, quite intensive dust exposures (dangerous is the fine material dust that occurs during drilling, sawing, milling, etc.) are usually required over several years, and it is also unlikely that the work you described would have led to such dust development. Most cases of asbestosis occur during the course of the work process, where there are repeated dust exposures over a long period of time. Nevertheless, I would advise you to have the asbestos sheets in your garden disposed of by a specialist or a corresponding company.

Best regards, O. Stephan.