Much like a brave face that betrays one’s internal pain, the
stately façade of Maddox Foundry and Machine Works in
Archer, Florida, conceals the flurry of activity within.
For 24 years, Jerry Nettles, 54, of Williston,
worked at Maddox, pouring 3,000-degree metal into
massive, bucket-shaped molds. Amid a constant
billowing of sandy smoke, he tuned out the machinery’s
deafening roar and focused on the flow of the
flammable liquid.
Sometimes, the metal splattered onto the floor,
and team members — their ears plugged, eyes
goggled and bodies covered in flame-resistant
fabrics — heaved sand to extinguish the flames
already licking at their elbows. Come evening,
Maddox’s employees began the trek home, their
faces, necks and hands covered in thick white dust.
It’s a place and a job Nettles still misses.
What Nettles didn’t learn until after decades of
employment at Maddox was that the chemicals he
was exposed to there were eating away at his lungs,
eventually calcifying them solid, he says. With
time, he was diagnosed with chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease and emphysema and learned he
needed a double lung transplant.
For years, Nettles chalked up his breathing
troubles to labor-induced fatigue, choosing to
continue supporting his family as long as he could
PHOTO BY MINDY C. MILLER
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