In Brush, Colorado, a ball of ice that crashed into a local home created an asbestos hazard, forcing a local family to evacuate their home. DaNelle Hagan was sitting in her kitchen with her 9-year-old daughter Elizabeth when a bowling-ball sized piece of ice crashed explosively through the kitchen ceiling. Thankfully, neither person was injured.
"It was just bizarre," Hagan said, "I heard a huge explosion, couldn’t figure out if something had crashed in or exploded out and [it was] just complete chaos after that…Everybody seems to think that it was [from] an airplane flying over the area." According to Federal Aviation Administration, it is rare but theoretically plausible that ice accumulating on the outside of aircraft can fall back to Earth. "It looks like a bomb went off," Hagan said.
Worst of all, the incident exposed asbestos in Hagan’s home, forcing this single mother to find a new home for her family. Asbestos exposure is conclusively linked to the development of mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer. Mesothelioma affects less than 3,000 Americans each year, and there is no known cure.
However, new research is conducted every year, and some patients do benefit from treatments ranging from prescription drugs to surgery to chemotherapy. Sadly, the cancer is capable of killing within months of being diagnosed.
"My head is spinning from everything that’s gone on the last few days, I’m just hoping for a good outcome soon," she said.