SPRING HILL, Tenn. (WTVF) — Dozens of people who fell sick with a fungal infection in September 2025 are now suing the construction companies they believe made them ill.
Fifty plaintiffs who lived, worked or spent time in the same few-mile stretch of Spring Hill and Thompson's Station are suing at least 20 contractors tied to construction projects in the area, alleging the companies failed to suppress dust that spread histoplasmosis.
The outbreak left families devastated. Liam O'Neal has been in and out of the hospital. Cami Carpenter was forced to withdraw from her classes. Eli Stinson was constantly exhausted, even as a young teen. Kathleen York still struggles with symptoms to this day. Alyssia Brown ultimately died from the infection.
"Mentally, you just feel like enough already," York said.
"In that moment I was like, I'm ready to leave. This is awful," Carpenter said.
"I think that's the hardest thing — knowing we could have lost our son," Liam O'Neal's parent said.
"I felt like the crazy mom. I kept calling, but I knew he had it," Cari Stinson said.
Brown's family said the outcome did not have to happen.
"It was treatable, but it wasn't caught in time," a family member said.
Attorney Tiffany Carpenter says the contractors failed to protect the people living around their projects.
"According to Tennessee law, companies who engage in soil-disturbing activities are legally responsible to engage in reasonable efforts to suppress fugitive dust," Carpenter said.
She described what those efforts should look like.
"Things like watering the soil down, putting tarp over the soil if there's going to be a particularly windy day, things like that," Carpenter said.
When those precautions are skipped, Carpenter says the consequences can be severe.
"When you have dust that's kicked up into the air or plumes into the air, you run the risk of whatever may be in that soil contaminating the environment — and that's what's happened here," Carpenter said.
The health department never identified a cause or source of the outbreak. But the plaintiffs believe the answer was right around them: construction projects disturbing the soil near where they lived, worked and went to school.
"This isn't just talking about coming down with the flu or a cold. These are people who became critically ill and are continuing to have to treat for these devastating illnesses," Carpenter said.
NewsChannel 5 reached out to the construction companies named in the lawsuit but has not yet heard back.
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