About St. Elizabeth Health Center Asbestos Exposure & Two-Year Filing Deadline
St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown served the Mahoning Valley for decades as a large hospital complex. Large hospital complexes like St. Elizabeth reportedly required enormous mechanical infrastructure built with asbestos-containing materials from the 1930s through the late 1970s. The facility’s scale required central plant operations comparable to a small industrial campus, with high-capacity boilers generating pressurized steam that heated the facility, sterilized equipment, and powered laundry operations. Steam piping ran from the central plant through subbasement tunnels and chases, branching upward through mechanical rooms on every floor. Hospitals built and expanded between the 1930s and late 1970s reportedly used asbestos across nearly every major building system, including pipe and boiler insulation, duct insulation, spray-applied fireproofing, floor tiles, ceiling tiles, transite board, and joint compound products.General Equipment at St. Elizabeth Health Center Asbestos Exposure & Two-Year Filing Deadline
The equipment below represents the systems and infrastructure documented or typically present at this facility during the era when asbestos-containing materials were specified in industrial construction. This is general facility-equipment reference — not a legal attribution of any specific product, manufacturer, or exposure event to this facility. Material-category and manufacturer information is addressed in the AsbestosIndex Product Crosswalk linked under the records table below.
Documented Asbestos Evidence — Ohio
The records below are verified, state-documented asbestos removals at this facility. Each entry represents a regulated abatement project where the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) was notified under federal NESHAP rules, the work was logged, and the asbestos-containing material was confirmed and removed under regulated conditions. These are not allegations or estimates — they are paper records tying documented asbestos-containing material to this specific site.
Material Categories in Documented Records
The materials documented above (and similar asbestos-containing materials commonly encountered in records of this type) appear in the AsbestosIndex catalog with historical manufacturer and trust-fund information. Click a category to view manufacturers historically associated with that material:
Who May Have Been Exposed at St. Elizabeth Health Center Asbestos Exposure & Two-Year Filing Deadline
Boilermakers tasked with rebricking, relining, and repairing boilers worked inside boiler shells surrounded by insulation debris, with members of Boilermakers Local 900 allegedly performing this work at St. Elizabeth under conditions that may have generated hazardous airborne fiber concentrations. Heat and Frost Insulators affiliated with Asbestos Workers Local 3 based in Cleveland directly applied and removed asbestos insulation products including Thermobestos and calcium silicate pipe insulation at St. Elizabeth and comparable regional institutional facilities throughout the mid-twentieth century. Pipefitters and Steamfitters installed and repaired high-temperature steam lines, cutting through existing asbestos pipe covering, with every cut through existing insulation reportedly releasing fibers; pipefitters who also worked at Republic Steel Youngstown or other Mahoning Valley industrial accounts may have accumulated asbestos dose from multiple employment sources. HVAC Mechanics reportedly disturbed asbestos duct liner, pipe insulation products, and flexible connections during system repairs and upgrades at Ohio institutional facilities.Ohio — Filing Deadline & Next Steps
Ohio law gives mesothelioma and asbestos-disease claimants 2 years from the date of medical diagnosis to file a personal-injury lawsuit (ORC § 2305.10). For wrongful-death claims after an asbestos-related death, the filing window is 2 years from the date of death (ORC § 2125.02). The two deadlines run on separate tracks — preserving one does not extend the other.
The personal-injury clock runs from diagnosis, not from exposure. Mesothelioma latency is typically 20 to 50 years, so workers exposed in the 1950s–1980s are being diagnosed today.
Practical first steps
- Document what you remember. Pay stubs, W-2s, union cards, photographs, coworker names, and dates of employment. The WorkChain widget on this page can save a copy you can email yourself.
- Preserve medical records. Pathology reports, biopsy results, imaging, and pulmonary-function tests are central to both civil claims and trust-fund filings.
- Identify household members. Spouses who laundered work clothing and children of plant workers are eligible for secondary-exposure claims when diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease.
- Speak with an asbestos attorney with Ohio experience. The first conversation is free and confidential. Asbestos trust-fund claims and civil claims run on different tracks — both can be pursued in parallel.
Asbestos-Related Diseases — Ohio
Asbestos fiber exposure can cause several specific diseases that typically appear decades after the original exposure. The latency period — the gap between exposure and diagnosis — usually runs 20 to 50 years. That's why workers exposed in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s are receiving diagnoses today.
Mesothelioma
A rare, aggressive cancer that affects the lining of the lungs (pleural mesothelioma), abdomen (peritoneal), or heart (pericardial). Mesothelioma is almost exclusively caused by asbestos exposure, which is why a mesothelioma diagnosis often points directly to historical workplace exposure. Average latency from first exposure to diagnosis is 30-50 years.
Asbestosis
A chronic, non-cancerous scarring of lung tissue caused by inhaled asbestos fibers. Asbestosis causes progressive shortness of breath, persistent cough, and reduced lung function. It does not improve with treatment, and it is a recognized basis for compensation under most trust schedules and civil claims.
Lung Cancer
Asbestos exposure significantly increases the risk of lung cancer, particularly when combined with a history of smoking. Asbestos-related lung cancer is compensable under the same trust schedules and civil claim avenues as mesothelioma.
Other Recognized Diseases
Pleural plaques, pleural thickening, laryngeal cancer, ovarian cancer, and certain gastrointestinal cancers are also recognized as asbestos-related under various trust schedules and case-law authorities, though eligibility and proof requirements vary by claim type.
If you have any of these diagnoses and you worked at this facility, lived with someone who did, or were exposed in any documented capacity, you may have a claim worth pursuing. Speak with an attorney before assuming you don't qualify.
Data Sources — Ohio
Information about facility equipment, industrial materials, and occupational records referenced on this page is drawn from publicly available sources where applicable, including:
- EPA ECHO Facility Compliance Database — enforcement and compliance records for industrial facilities
- OSHA Establishment Search — federal workplace inspection history
- EIA Form 860 Plant Data — power-plant equipment and ownership records (where applicable)
- Ohio Environmental Protection Agency NESHAP asbestos abatement notification records
- Published asbestos trial and trust fund records (publicly filed court documents)
- AsbestosIndex Product & Manufacturer Crosswalk — historical asbestos-containing product schedules linked to manufacturers
If specific equipment or product claims in this article are sourced from a non-public database, the source is identified parenthetically within the text above.