Mesothelioma Lawyer Nebraska: CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center Asbestos Exposure Claims

Urgent Filing Deadline: Protect Your Rights Now

If you have received a diagnosis of an asbestos-related disease due to alleged exposure at CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska law imposes a strict statute of limitations under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-224 for filing personal injury claims. The Nebraska personal injury statute of limitations is four years from the date of diagnosis, not from the date of alleged exposure. For wrongful death claims, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-809 also provides a four-year window from the date of death. These two clocks run independently—a critical distinction for families balancing personal injury and wrongful death claims simultaneously.

Trust fund claims and civil lawsuits can be pursued simultaneously, but trust fund assets are depleting, and your right to pursue litigation closes permanently after four years. Contact an asbestos attorney in Nebraska today to discuss your legal options with the O’Brien Law Firm.

If You Worked at This Hospital, You May Have Been Exposed to Asbestos Decades Ago—and Symptoms May Be Appearing Now

Thousands of skilled trades workers, maintenance personnel, and hospital employees labored at CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center during the decades when asbestos-containing materials were the standard in American hospital construction. Many of those workers may have been exposed to airborne asbestos fibers on the job—exposure that can remain silent for 20, 30, or even 50 years before triggering mesothelioma, asbestosis, or lung cancer.

If you worked at this facility between the 1940s and 1990s and now face a diagnosis of an asbestos-related disease—or if a family member has fallen ill—an asbestos cancer lawyer in Omaha can help you understand your options before the filing window closes.

Unfortunately, many of the coworkers who shared shifts with you in the earlier years of your career may no longer be reachable. Time is precious.

CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center: A Major Academic Facility Built During the Asbestos Era

The Facility

CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center, located at 7500 Mercy Road in Omaha, Nebraska (Douglas County), is one of the region’s most prominent academic medical and research institutions. The hospital traces its roots to the late nineteenth century under the sponsorship of the Sisters of Mercy, later operating through Creighton University School of Medicine. Over the twentieth century, the facility underwent substantial construction, expansion, and infrastructure renovation—phases during which asbestos-containing materials were allegedly incorporated throughout the building’s mechanical, electrical, and structural systems.

Today the facility operates as part of CommonSpirit Health’s CHI Health network. The legacy of construction materials from the asbestos era remains an active legal concern for former workers seeking an asbestos lawyer in Nebraska to represent their claims.

Timeline of High-Risk Construction and Renovation Eras

The campus reportedly evolved between the 1940s and the late 1980s—precisely the period when asbestos-containing materials dominated American construction as the standard insulation and fireproofing specification:

  • Pre-1940s foundational construction: Early structures reportedly incorporated asbestos-containing materials in insulation, roofing, and structural components.
  • 1940s–1960s major expansion phases: Post-World War II hospital expansion relied heavily on asbestos-containing materials across mechanical and structural systems. Creighton’s medical campus reportedly underwent major additions during this era, with pipe covering, block insulation, and spray fireproofing applied throughout new mechanical systems.
  • 1970s construction and renovation: Projects continued specifying asbestos-containing materials despite mounting scientific evidence of health hazards. Pipe covering, block insulation, floor tile, ceiling tile, and spray fireproofing installed before regulatory changes remained in place and were regularly disturbed by maintenance and renovation workers.
  • 1980s renovation and remediation work: As EPA and OSHA imposed increasingly stringent abatement requirements, renovation and demolition work at the facility allegedly produced high-intensity, short-duration exposure events for insulators, boilermakers, pipefitters, electricians, and laborers involved in tear-out and reconstruction.
  • Ongoing maintenance cycles: Throughout all decades, routine maintenance activities—replacing gaskets, repairing steam lines, cutting floor tiles, working in ceiling plenums—reportedly continued to expose trades workers to friable asbestos-containing materials long after the initial installation period.

This pattern of layered construction—old materials covered by new, then reopened during later renovations—is what occupational health researchers consistently associate with prolonged and repeated asbestos exposure among skilled trades workers in Nebraska medical facilities.

Why Hospitals Were Among the Highest-Risk Asbestos Environments

Hospitals were among the most demanding environments for construction materials in the twentieth century. Unlike office buildings or warehouses, medical facilities ran around the clock, required extensive steam heat distribution for sterilization and patient comfort, housed large boiler plants, and had to meet strict fire safety codes. Those requirements made asbestos-containing materials the standard specification for architects, mechanical engineers, and contractors from roughly the 1920s through the mid-1980s.

Specific Applications in Healthcare Settings

  • Thermal insulation: Steam and hot-water distribution systems—essential for hospital sterilization, laundry, and heating—required extensive pipe covering and block insulation. These systems spanned mechanical rooms, utility corridors, ceiling plenums, and building-wide networks.

  • Fire resistance: Federal and state building codes required fire-rated assemblies throughout healthcare facilities. Architects and contractors specified spray fireproofing and refractory materials containing asbestos for structural steel, mechanical rooms, and corridor ceilings.

  • Acoustical and moisture control: Floor tiles, ceiling tiles, and adhesives in patient rooms, corridors, and utility areas frequently contained asbestos as a binding and stabilizing agent.

  • Electrical insulation: Asbestos cloth, tape, and millboard were installed in electrical panels, switchgear rooms, and around high-temperature wiring in utility spaces throughout institutional buildings.

  • Boiler plant operations: Boiler rooms required refractory lining, insulating cement, and gasket materials that were almost universally asbestos-bearing through the mid-1980s.

In a large teaching hospital like Creighton University Medical Center, all of these systems were present simultaneously. All were reportedly installed and maintained by skilled trades workers who may have encountered asbestos-containing materials daily throughout their careers at this campus.

Which Jobs at This Hospital Carried the Highest Exposure Risk?

Occupational health researchers have identified a consistent set of skilled trades whose members face elevated risk of asbestos-related disease based on the nature of their work in facilities like CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center. If you held any of the following roles at this facility—as a direct hospital employee, a union contractor, or a subcontractor—you may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials.

Heat and Frost Insulators

Heat and Frost Insulators Local 39 members worked directly with pipe covering, block insulation, and insulating cement. Applying, cutting, and removing these materials was the core of the trade—and it produced some of the highest measured fiber counts in any industrial or institutional setting. Insulators working on Creighton’s steam distribution systems, boiler plant, and mechanical rooms allegedly encountered asbestos-containing materials throughout their time on this campus.

Pipefitters and Steamfitters

UA Pipefitters Local 464 Omaha members installed, repaired, and replaced the steam and hot-water distribution systems running throughout the hospital campus. When pipe covering had to come off to access a joint or valve, pipefitters often stripped it themselves or worked directly beside insulators doing so—generating secondary exposure to airborne asbestos fibers. This cumulative exposure pattern is well-documented in occupational health literature.

Boilermakers

Boilermakers Local 11 maintained and repaired the hospital’s boiler plant—one of the most asbestos-containing-material-intensive locations in any institutional building. Refractory materials, insulating cement, and gaskets in boiler systems were almost universally asbestos-bearing through the 1980s. Boilermakers at Creighton’s central plant may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials during routine maintenance, annual overhauls, and emergency repair work.

Electricians

Electricians working in hospitals encountered asbestos-containing materials in multiple locations:

  • Asbestos millboard in electrical panels and switchgear
  • Asbestos cloth and tape on high-temperature wiring
  • Electrical conduit penetrations through asbestos-insulated walls and ceilings
  • Ceiling plenums where spray fireproofing may have been present overhead

Electricians from IBEW Local 22 Omaha and IBEW Local 265 Lincoln working in older sections of the Creighton campus may have been exposed during both original installation and subsequent renovation work.

Carpenters, Drywall Workers, and Plasterers

Workers who cut, sanded, or demolished walls, ceilings, and flooring during renovation phases may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials in:

  • Drywall joint compound
  • Floor tile and floor tile adhesive
  • Ceiling tile
  • Plaster formulations

These materials were in widespread use through the 1970s and into the 1980s. Disturbance during renovation work generated significant dust exposure.

Maintenance and Custodial Workers

Hospital maintenance personnel—particularly those responsible for HVAC systems, plumbing, and building infrastructure—regularly worked in mechanical spaces where asbestos-containing materials were allegedly present. Sweeping, drilling, or disturbing ACM-containing surfaces without adequate respiratory protection produced chronic low-level exposure that researchers have linked to asbestos-related disease.

Laborers and General Construction Workers

Laborers involved in demolition, material handling, site cleanup, and general construction support during renovation and expansion phases may have been exposed to asbestos fibers released during tear-out and disturbance of insulation, fireproofing, and structural materials. Workers in these roles often received minimal protective equipment or training during the peak exposure era.

Hospital Employees in High-Exposure Areas

Nurses, technicians, and other clinical staff whose work routinely brought them into boiler rooms, mechanical corridors, or areas undergoing renovation may also have encountered asbestos-containing materials, though typically at lower levels than the trades workers described above.

What Asbestos-Containing Materials Were Allegedly Present at This Facility?

Based on the construction era of CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center and the systems documented in comparable academic medical facilities of the same period, the following categories of asbestos-containing materials were allegedly present.

Specific product identification for legal purposes is handled through the AsbestosIndex Product Crosswalk for Healthcare Facilities linked from this page. The categories below describe material types and locations based on occupational health research of similar-era institutional buildings.

Pipe Covering and Block Insulation

Thermal insulation on steam pipes, hot water lines, and chilled water lines throughout the facility reportedly consisted of pipe covering and block insulation that, during the applicable construction era, routinely contained chrysotile and/or amosite asbestos fibers as the primary insulating component. These materials were allegedly present in:

  • Mechanical rooms
  • Utility corridors and chaseways
  • Ceiling plenums above patient care and administrative areas
  • Building-wide steam and hot-water distribution systems

Workers who maintained, repaired, cut, or removed these materials may have been exposed to respirable asbestos fibers. Exposure levels were often highest during renovation and tear-out phases when old insulation was stripped from active pipe runs.

Spray-Applied Fireproofing

Structural steel members in older sections of the campus were reportedly coated with spray-applied fireproofing to meet fire safety code requirements. Spray fireproofing products used before the mid-1970s typically contained asbestos fiber as the primary reinforcing agent. This material is particularly hazardous because it remains friable—crumbly and easily disturbed—and mobilizes readily during any renovation, drilling, or demolition activity. Workers drilling through fireproofed structural steel or performing demolition in older sections of the building may have been exposed to high concentrations of asbestos dust.

Floor Tile and Ceiling Tile

Resilient floor tile and ceiling tile installed throughout the hospital before the late 1970s allegedly contained asbestos as a binder. Intact tile poses limited immediate risk, but cutting, sanding, chipping, or removing these materials—common during renovation and repair work—released asbestos fibers. Maintenance workers, carpenters, and floor installers working in renovation areas may have been exposed without adequate warning or protection.

Refractory and Boiler Room Materials

The boiler plant and

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