The Mesothelioma Veterans Center Promise

Arthur Putt:
What we do every night, we sit together and we'll watch TV, and then at 07:00, we have our ice cream
bar.

Jan Putt:
My name is Jan Putt. I'm married to Art who was diagnosed with mesothelioma in April 2018. Originally,
the doctor said he would have possibly six months to a year, and that was four years ago. So I love him. I
still got him.

Arthur Putt:
I feel sorry for somebody that loses someone and they don't have that time to say what they think or
last or how they feel. We do it every day, and it has been that way even before this happened. We did
everything together, remodeling our homes and stuff like that, her woodworking.

Jan Putt:
We used to go out for long drives, just go out sightseeing, and we'd be gone for four or five hours.

Arthur Putt:
We never get tired of being together.

Jan Putt:
His very early symptoms were just a very light hacky cough, and I couldn't get him to go to see the
doctor until it got a little worse one day and he decided maybe he needed to go see somebody. They did
a X-ray and they thought he had pneumonia, but the radiologist wasn't happy with that and wanted
more tests. So they did some scans, and that was the first time they said he had mesothelioma.

Arthur Putt:
It was kind of good to know that there was no cure for it in a way. I was able to make the best out of my
life from that point on. We just got positive about it, that I was lucky to have time, to spend quality time
with her and say what I wanted to say, and not just all of a sudden be gone. So we cherish every day of
it.

I really wasn't much of a mechanic at first. I got a job at a service station. We did a lot of brakes. That
was probably our, besides tune-up, that was our next busiest thing. We had done it the old-fashioned
way and we had dust everywhere.

Jan Putt:
We filed a mesothelioma lawsuit because we had family members and stuff that encouraged us to do it.
Our daughter in Indiana knew somebody that had worked with Simmons Hanly Conroy and had had a
very good experience.
Come on in.

John Barnerd:
It's so good to see you.

Jan Putt:
John first came here and we had several meetings with him and crowds of people at times.

John Barnerd:
Within about nine or 10 months, I think from when we had filed the case-ts

Arthur Putt:
We had four settlement jury verdict, and only one we had to go to court for. The one thing that shocked
and amazed me was when they called me in to see them. I walked in there and it must have been 8, 10
lawyers in there all working on this thing.

What he did for us, made our financial situation a whole lot better. We gave all that money to our kids,
paid our house off. It made our life a little easier. We've got no financial worries, and that makes it
easier for me to know that she's taken care of, and we have John and his firm to thank for all that.
What I tell people, is it's the one good thing that came out of something bad. I can't say how miserable
this would be without him and what he did and his firm, and his family as far as we're concerned.

The word mesothelioma I didn’t know anything about. When I turned 70 I started getting pneumonia, but then as time went on they kept getting closer and closer and closer together [the occurrences] and I asked the doctor, I said, I wanna know why.

And they sent me downstairs to get a chest X-ray and the X-ray made it back before I got back up there.

He says, we're gonna go inside and take a look. He come up right to my bedside after the operation and showed me the pictures they took on the inside of the lung and he pointed out the cancer.

I really can’t explain it. I got a knot in my stomach, you know. But he told me then that there was no cure for it.

I was impressed by the Navy – seeing my uncle in that Navy uniform, you know – take pictures of him. So I just decided when I come outta school that I was gonna join the Navy.

I was very proud of that uniform. I was a boiler tender when I went aboard my first ship and started doing my first job. They told me — I asked them what the material was made out of and they told me it was asbestos.

It didn’t kill anybody on the spot that’s for sure, but it took years later when it started catching up with us. But, my understanding [is] that the powers-that-be knew.

I didn’t wanna sue my government and I damn sure didn’t wanna sue the Navy cause they're still feeding me. I wasn’t suing the government, I wasn’t suing the U.S. Navy, I was suing the manufacturer.

It was only 2 or 3 days and he was here [the lawyer]. He came and seen me, talked to me personally. He knew what kind of a man I was and how involved I was with my job in the Navy. Felt very comfortable with them. I was watching the way they handled it, they did good.

[It was] positive thinking, there was nothing negative about it, it was positive. They were prepared, they could go back to day 1, and I appreciated that. There was no guessing about it, they had the paperwork to back them up.

It was a hands-on approach I guess, and that’s what drew me. Cause that’s the way I do things – a hands-on approach. They damn well earned it.