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Ruben Luna, 49 Employee: 1982-1994
Deep wounds scar Aurora man's body, mind
Ruben Luna, former Nicor emplloyee, scarred for life, doesn’t believe he’ll live more than five more years so spending as much time with kids as possible.”I spend as much time with them as possible, “I want them to remember me.”

Back then, the best day of Ruben Luna's life was when the gas company offered him a job.

"I was the first person in my family to have a real job, a good job," he says. "I wanted to be the best."

It wasn't long before he had a reputation as a ferociously hard worker. When the union asked if he wanted his first or last name monogrammed on his jacket, Luna chose his nickname: Bone Chewer.

The moniker came from co-workers who said Luna was like a dog that chewed on every overtime bone he could find. In one year he put in more than 1,000 extra hours, and the president of the company took him to dinner to thank him for his dedication.

"I felt they gave me a chance, so I went above and beyond for them," he said. ¶ For his hard work, he was paid well. A seventh-grade dropout who struggled with reading, he couldn't believe his good fortune. In 1989, he put a two-week paycheck for $1,100 in his photo album. It was worth more to him as a souvenir.

"I never cashed it," he said. "I was so proud. I still keep it in my house."

But Luna, like many employees, was also haunted by health problems at Nicor. Before his 40th birthday, he had part of his stomach removed and gallstones taken out. Neither operation stopped the pain in his chest. His teeth fell out until he had full top and bottom dentures.

Luna's doctor was stumped. "You can't be this sick," Luna recalls the physician telling him. "You have the body of an 80-year-old and you're 30."

There were other problems, too — ones Luna didn't tell anyone about.

"I couldn't control my bowels," he said, trying to avoid eye contact even today. "It got to the point where it was just embarrassing. I've had to throw away underwear to hide it from my wife."

What Luna didn't know was that dozens of other employees at Nicor's Aurora plant also were suffering. He didn't find that out until years later, when he ran into a former co-worker, Bruce Brummel, who told him he believed contaminated water in the company's break room was ravaging employees' bodies.

Luna thought about the three- and five-gallon jugs he used to take to the streets with him as he installed and repaired gas lines at homes, then started to ask others if they were having health problems, too.

"Now, I talk to the guys and they have the same symptoms without me telling them (my symptoms) first," he said. "It's curious."

However, by then Luna had left Nicor. He said when he started getting sick, his supervisor constantly hounded him, gave him bad shifts and took away overtime.

"It got to the point where I didn't like going in anymore," he said.

Now, at 49, Luna's body is getting too worn down to work outside regularly.

"They can never find anything wrong with me," he said. "They keep saying nothing's wrong. And yet I'm in agony as far as pain. It just knocks me down."

Luna isn't sure if water caused all this — he's a welder, not a chemist. But he can't find any other explanation for why so many young co-workers have suffered so much.

"I'm not saying it's the water, but maybe," he says. "We all have the same thing."

When Luna points to the deep scars that cut across his abdomen, he doesn't show any more emotion than explaining a gas line. When he talks about the persistent rashes that plague him, he doesn't complain.

When he tells you that he doesn't expect to live five more years, he doesn't cry.

It's not until he talks about his wife and two daughters that the Bone Chewer breaks down.

"They say when you die, your life flashes before your eyes," he said. "And I think: 'Is it going to be a sad end because I am going to be angry? Am I going to go sad because I'll think I did it all for nothing?'"