The private horror of Wind Turbine Syndrome: A true story (France)
Aug 9, 2012
Last April, I spent two nights here, at home, covered with sleep surveillance equipment. I noted what I heard or not and at what time, and what I was doing (going to sleep, how much I heard the wind turbines, or if there was perfect silence, etc.).
The debriefing took place Monday July 16, at the hospital in Saint Etienne. A certain Doctor Emilia Sforza commented on the two diagrams corresponding to each of the two nights monitored. (I had never seen her before, she was different from the head of the unit I had seen before the surveillance, a certain Dr. Roche.) She never took the notes I had given them about the noise I heard during those two nights. She had not even read them, I suspect. She never pronounced the words “wind turbines.”
She told me, on the basis of the first diagram showing the first night, that I had first gone to sleep rapidly and then slept correctly.
On the second night, I took much longer to go to sleep and my sleep was very bad. She then told me I had a psychological problem.
She never mentioned any sort of connection with anything I could have heard or not during those two nights.
I then made her take my notes out of her file, which she did reluctantly with a very sorry countenance. I had to ask her to look at my notes. She glanced at them and handed them to me disdainfully, saying she couldn’t read them, with this same sorry, nearly disgusted, countenance.
I showed her: on the first night, when I went to sleep rapidly and slept correctly, as she herself had said, my notes read, “Total silence.”
But I couldn’t go further. Her speech was ready. She knew! She told me, again, that I had a typical psychological problem and that I was “obsessed” and that I needed therapy. Urgently.
She never showed me what the diagram said about the second night when I was awakened at 5:30 by very irritating vibrations, or when I got up at 7:10 in a very unnerved state (as my notes read).
And then, she said: “You can’t go against a renewable energy.”
I was astonished when I heard this doctor actually pronounce those words: Is that a clinical judgment? Can a doctor say such things? “You can’t go against a renewable energy”?
I stayed polite. Not because I wanted to be (I was devastated). I’m used to not being believed; I know I’m on my own in this matter, in this nightmare, and I’m so tired of all this. I should write to this hospital and tell them to change jobs. I should sue that doctor Sforza for what she told me and for the despicable way she said it.
But I’m tired, my friends. I’m done. It’s no use.
To top it all, on Sunday night (two days ago), I was tired and couldn’t find the energy to drive down to my mother’s apartment to sleep there, as I usually do. So I stayed at home and slept in my house. Everything was silent at the beginning. God, it’s so nice at home when there are no vibrations! But, of course, the wind turbines started some time during the night and went on into the morning, and I left home Monday morning completely exhausted and in the weird state those vibrations left me in. My recovery time is much longer now, I’ve noticed.
I was still in a strange state Monday afternoon in Le Puy and I had a car accident there. My fault 100%. I DIDN’T SEE the car I bumped into. I didn’t SEE it! That’s frightening. I LOOKED, and I DIDN’T SEE. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. It’s as if I had aimed at that car and very consciously cut off its route. Nobody does that.
And, of course, I’m told I was tired. “Such things happen when you’re tired.”
Now I say “yes.” I just don’t try to explain any more that it’s not only tiredness. I know what I know, and I’m the only one around to know.
I’m leaving Thursday morning for a week’s rest in the Alps. My sister-in-law has an apartment there, in Briançon. No turbines there.
My house is not ready to sell. It will wait. It won’t be ready in September. I don’t know where I’ll be living then and I’ll have to work again.
I just don’t think that far anymore.
Comment by Marsh Rosenthal on 08/10/2012 at 1:36 am
Dear Hubert,
First, I must observe that, as a victim of WTS, it is normal that you should feel depression and anger. Your clinician, Dr. Sforza, acted in violation of the Hippocratic Oath when she brushed off your suffering as psychological, as if she had any basis for that diagnosis. Rather than addressing your symptoms, which are physiological, she exacerbated your pain, not something that a responsible medical practioner should ever do.
Her comment to you that you cannot “go against a renewable energy” earns her the title of “shill for Big Wind.” She seems to be so deeply “greenwashed” that it is probably useless to seek correction.
I shudder to think of her reaction if you attempted to describe the enormity of the conspiratorial tax shelter that the fascistic renewable energy industry has created for itself. She would flee the medical facility altogether when you explained the extent of the land grab that is the actual outcome of the colonization being perpetrated by the windpower industry in the name of clean and green energy.
That you had a driving accident is most unfortunate. Mark Cool, of Falmouth (Mass.), has written about his being rendered into an impaired state, akin to drunkenness, by his neighboring 1.65 MW windturbine. After developing a flawless record for over thirty years as a working air traffic controller, he now lives with the mortification of having a near-miss incident during one of his duty shifts. He correctly points out that if government creates unsafe and toxic living conditions with these huge machines, what can we say but that the green madness has captured this society and will be its undoing.
Dear Hubert, please stay as far away from the turbines as you can. You have already been sensitized by them. You are at an increased risk than those in the public who have not been in their presence. I am concerned for your safety.
Marsh
Comment by Andreas Marciniak on 08/10/2012 at 2:16 am
Hello Hubert, your not on your own in this,we experienced much of the same, after my daughter move in with me in Waterloo South Australia, I kept my eyes on her to see if she will get sick, as I have and a lot of others in Town, she showed signs after only one night, she was 17 years old at the time, so I told her to right down how she slept and how she feels first thing in the morning and I taken her blood pressure and Heart rate, only to find out her heart rate went through the roof and so did her blood pressure, so I had to take to the local Dr. and Taken the paper with me that she keep’t her Info , I told him that it might have something to do with the Turbines , his reaction straight away was NO it cant be that,” I go to the wind farms all the time with my Children and we don”t have any problems, He forgot to say that he is only there for a very short time”, I said to him, look at what is on the paper, it clearly shows that when we are away from the Turbines she is better and her blood pressures and Heart rate goes down , even with that said, his reply !”
If you both feel better when your away from the Turbines just move”.
so after 4 week or so, I told my daughter to go and stay in the City with her sister, and she did, after 2-3 day she got back to normal, even after she had a work out with a personal trainer (my daughter in the City),
she found that her blood pressure stayed normal.
So Hubert your not on your own, in what was my town, (Waterloo south Australia) we have between 50%-60%-70% of people have been mildly to servilely affected from the time they stared these Turbines 37 x 3mgw units.
kind regards
Andreas
Comment by gail on 08/10/2012 at 3:46 am
I’m devastated that they’re still saying these things—that so-called doctors are saying these things. A certain psychiatrist said similar things to me in 2007 and I got that person to sign a wishy washy statement of why I went to see that person (you can see the report, names changed, here on this site). “They” have become more cautious these days but you are not alone and their house of cards will collapse. Believe it!
Deepest shame on this kind of bogus “professional.”
Comment by Karen Bessey Pease on 08/10/2012 at 6:57 am
Cher Monsier de Bonneville,
Ach, mon ami . . . your story breaks my heart. I am so sorry that you have been victimized in this way. Your words bleed exhaustion and hopelessness.
You cannot know the tremendous empathy I feel for you. But I am experiencing disgust, dismay and tremendous anger at those who have imperiously decided that you can be sacrificed. That you and your neighbors are nothing more than collateral damage. That people living in Mars Hill (Maine) or Falmouth (Massachusetts) or Ontario (Canada) or Scotland or Australia or New Zealand or Italy or France do not matter!
They DO matter. YOU matter! You MUST matter, for if you don’t, nothing and no one does.
I ask, please, that you remain hopeful. That you continue to speak up for your rights as a human being. We’re on the cusp, approaching critical mass. Soon, our voices will be heard—and not only heard, but taken into account. But that will only happen if we do not give up. If we do not let the wind industry wear us down. If we do not shy away from the controversy, nor let our fear of the establishment drive us into silence and immobility.
I understand that you are tired of feeling like you are a lone voice in the wilderness. I recognize the hurt and fear you feel when your symptoms are dismissed as a “psychological” problem. But dammit, YOU are NOT crazy. The truth is, THEY’VE been brainwashed. “Green-washed.” They’ve been subjected to years of “conditioning” by the wind industry. They intuitively recognize the threat of losing their jobs if they don’t tow the “wind” line. They understand that the “establishment” will set out to ruin their reputations—–thereby signing a death warrant for their careers and their standing in the community. Others are fanatic and dogged in their belief that industrial wind will save the planet so that they and their progeny can live another day.
Sir, THEY are the ones who aren’t seeing the world clearly. Not you.
Oftentimes, those who won’t listen—–those who ignore you or disregard you or who are closed-minded on the subject of the devastating effects of wind turbine noises—are every bit as much a victim as you are. The difference is, they don’t know it. They can’t conceive that they are being used to further the agendas of powerful corporate entities. No, as much as we’d like to hate and despise and revile them, many of them just don’t understand that they are victims. You KNOW you are!
They think they are right.
But YOU are!
Please take care of yourself. You must stay healthy in order to live the full life you deserve. You must stay healthy to fight this battle—–for your sake and the sake of thousands of victims around the world.
The cold Atlantic separates us, but I am right there beside you in spirit.
Courage, mon brave.
Karen ‘Kaz’ Pease
Lexington Township, Maine, USA
Comment by sue Hobart on 08/10/2012 at 8:28 am
Well, I certainly understand what you are going through. I am in the process of abandoning my home and ripping up a little “fixer-upper” so I can simply sleep again.
You aren’t crazy and neither am I. I was hospitalized this year, though. In a “nut house.” At first they thought I was indeed crazy, but after I got some sleep they started to believe me. I was probably the sanest person there, and the best suggestion anyone gave me was, “Don’t go back there!”
So, I haven’t slept at home for 5 months and am at the mercy of a good friend and her guestroom.
My beautiful custom-built home will be available for sale, or for rent or, better yet, for medical and sleep studies as soon as I get the plumbing working in the “fixer-upper.” I offer it to any honest researcher to move on in and wire it up.
My home is the original location of the Bruce McPherson Report, so there is already a good bit of scientific data to start with. Let’s Go somebody! Get the funding and let’s prove this stuff! Sleep studies, volunteer “guinea pigs” (stressing “volunteer”) and real scientists only, please.
All I can say after 2 years of torture and disbelief is if you are in a turbine house and suffering, just save yourself and get out at any price. We may well be broke after this but as least we will be alive and somewhat coherent. This has been just toooooooo much to continue to bear!
Comment by Marsh Rosenthal on 08/10/2012 at 10:39 am
Dear Hubert,
WE ARE THE GLOBAL WINDTURBINE VICTIM’S SUPPORT GROUP! VOUS AVEZ RAISON! YOU ARE OUR BROTHER AND WE ARE HERE FOR YOU AND TO PROTECT YOU!
In solidarity!
Marsh
Comment by Mtumba Djibouti on 08/10/2012 at 3:18 pm
What does Marsh mean? Who is the global support group? Remind me not to call them in an emergency!
What strikes me repeatedly—dare I say, ad nauseum?—is the continuing, continual apologetic, resigned and polite tone genuine victims of this gigantic, diabolical, politically correct, tax subsidized travesty of a scam continue to hold. Where is the outrage? Where is the anger? Is this how we’d defend our children were they under threat? Is resigned sadness and regret all we can muster? It’s as if we deserve our fate at the hands of wind robber barons. We are sheep to slaughter. Our “words” are merely bleating.
Editor’s reply: Mtumba, my friend, this may be a little harsh, yes? Marshall Rosenthal risked his life in the no-holds-barred Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi and elsewhere in the 1960s. His relatives were exterminated in Hitler’s death camps. He has been a tremendous force for change in Mass. Sue Hobart has verbally mauled the Falmouth Selectmen—repeatedly. Sue and her husband have stood before the jeering mobs in Falmouth and stood their ground. Gail Atkinson Mair is responsible for translating WTS Abridged into both German and Italian. Karen Pease has organized numerous educational & community meetings in Maine, spreading the word, there, about feckless wind energy. She also runs a blog where she takes this up. She has been a mainstay of the Maine resistance, including blockading wind turbine construction. Andreas Marciniak, in Australia, was driven from his home. He now lives in a garage. He has devoted his life, now, to bringing justice to wind turbine victims; his is one of the chief voices prodding Australian Senators to rein in Big Wind
And I could go on.
What Marsh is doing, here, is extending kinship, brotherhood, and comfort to Hubert de Bonneville. We are indeed a global support group, as is this website to which I have devoted years of my life. Yes, do call us in an emergency, as many have done—and we have helped them. In a good many cases, we have given them the tools and support to beat wind turbines.
Comment by Marsh Rosenthal on 08/10/2012 at 7:11 pm
Mtumba, join us!
Comment by johana on 08/10/2012 at 7:21 pm
Greetings to the Global Wind Turbine Victims’ Support Group from one of the Norfolk Victims of Industrial Wind Turbines.
The tiny community of the Clear Creek/Cultus/Frogmore IWT ZONE composed of ~ 140 houses which has 18 Vestas 1.65 MW IWTS all jammed in within a 3 km radius found that ~ 70 individuals and now far fewer NVoIWTs who in the summer of 2009 reported that they were affected by those IWTS are being decimated by the relentless pounding: one successful suicide – her house bought at fire sale price
by a marijuana growing operation
one unsuccessful suicide with that individual just leaving
the house next to mine was abandoned by the couple there
and then torched by an arsonist
#s varying between 6 and 9 houses were abandoned
~ 8 vacant houses with for sale signs
~ 7 occupied houses for sale
two individuals were placed in long term care by their
families [one found wandering 15 km from home at 3 am]
one pregnant woman lost her baby in the 2nd trimester
one person died after valiant intensive care for 3 months
one person experienced a heart attack
another suffered a stroke
3 individuals had heart bypass surgery
an unknown # of families have silently folded their
belongings and moved away
Where in the world have so many adverse effects taken place in such a tiny community [3 km radius ~ 25 sq km] in such a short [45 month] period of time?
Like many others, I’m an IWT refugee looking for an affordable place to sleep, returning to an unsellable house for laundering, showering, evening meal prep, using the land telephone line and computer, always aware of the need to leave to make it to the sleeping den in a bunkhouse at a forestry camp 28 km away from the toxic house [for now].
Knowing that change is the one CONSTANT in life, I look forward to the end of the IWT insanity and a return to global rationality.
All the best to Global Wind Turbine Victims.
Stay strong.
Comment by Marsh Rosenthal on 08/10/2012 at 7:55 pm
Dear Johana,
We, none of us, could imagine the devastation visited upon you and your little community by the IWT monstrous nightmare. A revulsion siezes me, enflames me against this excuse for mindless plunder, disguised as the “green” savior of the planet.
Let all who read your words bear witness to the truth. Let all who read your words find the courage to resist. Let all who read your words find the means to crush this quintessential evil that foists itself upon the unsuspecting people of the world. Let all who read your words drive the liars that are the proponents of this horror into extinction!
I am your brother, dear Johana.
Marsh
Comment by Mtumba on 08/11/2012 at 4:04 pm
Calvin, of course I respect you and your efforts, and respect, empathize and grieve for and with all turbine victims worldwide. I bother to write because I believe your website is a critically important resource.
My observations are intended as a form of agitprop. I fear good people will remain perpetual victims if all they do is console one another and share commiseration.
As for Marsh, I meant no disrespect. I knew nothing of his history, though we share much in common. I never had the opportunity to meet any relative on my mother’s side of the family, as every last one of them and their fellow villagers were murdered either in loco or later in camps.
But I do dare say that simply commiserating with one another would not have saved them.
Anyway, Marsh, I am indeed one with you. I’ve spent the last four years agitating at hearings, educating neighbors and the larger community, speaking truth to power—and to the dishonest, sycophantic “academics” and “professionals” who whore-out their credentials and act as cover and enablers to the politically connected, greedy, tax grant and subsidy slurping wind “investors.”
We’ve had some successes, or appear to have, but I’m literally afraid to acknowledge it, as wind industry shills are monied and influential and our present administration is full of green fools and ideologues who ignore bird kills and energy scams while granting environmental waivers and tranches of public money to their powerful friends.
I wonder, when will it be deemed time for a different approach?
And Calvin—I, too, admire and respect Gandhi. But I often wonder, does at least half the credit of his success fairly reside with his foe? For non-violence to work, does one not need a moral and ethical adversary? If so, we are doomed with regard to the wind industry. It is clear the industry is craven, greedy, dishonest and morally bankrupt. Will they not simply hear our anguish and laugh?
Editor’s reply: Thanks for saying this. Your points are well taken. I don’t have good answers.
You ask when it will be time for a “different approach.” I think that time has come in Australia. I think the anger there is palpable and huge. Several federal senators are leading the charge. Dr. Sarah Laurie has turned herself into a whirlwind, and I fear for her life (at the hands of an assassin). ABC News (Australia) is now on board. Several key journalists for national media are also on board. And, most recently, a township has rejected a windplant proposal on the basis of Wind Turbine Syndrome, alone, and if the matter goes to court, it will be the moment we’re all looking for. Nina Pierpont has offered to fly over there and testify. I suspect Dr. Salt would do the same, along with Rick James and Rob Rand & Steve Ambrose.
If you’re thinking “violence” as a “different approach,” I recommend against it. (I believe we’ve had this conversation before.) Violence begets violence. Goals that are achieved through violence are never permanent and, frankly, never resolved. (Hence, never really achieved, unless those goals are base.) Perhaps most important, to engage in violence is dehumanizing; it strips us of our very best quality as human beings—the exercise of “grace” and “compassion.”
I realize my views are a minority. For what it’s worth, they were reached after a lifetime of being a professional historian specializing in the philosophy of history. One of my books, along the way, was titled “The Way of the Human Being,” published by Yale. As I say, I have given it much thought and study.
Comment by Mtumba on 08/11/2012 at 5:23 pm
None of us do! But we must fight on. We owe it to our Earth mother, Gaia, welt atman or whatever else one calls it. Cheers.
Comment by Jackie on 08/13/2012 at 2:51 am
I have read these stories and feel for all those who are suffering. Fortunately an installation intended near to my new home was stopped by the valiant efforts of a dairy farmer named Richard. His efforts cost him dearly. He took them to court an won. Now with our state government changing the rules, the company may be able to apply again. Democracy in South Australia has been taking hits for years and now regulations have been written by our state government allowing these companies to appeal decisions that have gone against them—but if it’s the other way round, we the citizens of this state CANNOT appeal!
I also feel very very angry to the point of wanting to physically hit out at these selfish money hungry fools. But yes they are fools and so instead I feel sorry for them.
However, I agree with Ghandi’s statement and, as has been mentioned, Australia is fighting back. We are taking them to the line and we are showing these companies and those who fawn after them for what they are—greedy liars, who consider it OK to put in planning applications that appear to have been prepared by primary school-age children. We are taking the government on and showing them for what they are.
Just heard the company at Solney Gap here in South Australia IS going to appeal. The people there need everyone’s help to let Tru Energy know they are despicable. If no one signs up to get power from them, they will go broke.
Comment by Basil on 08/14/2012 at 5:12 am
Hubert’s gives his story of a doctor who appears to have nervously avoided the clinical picture of her patient. It is as though this medical practitioner has earmarked as a public enemy because he is getting sick from the operating presence of the local gods of the wind energy religion.
This attitude unfortunately has officially manifested itself in Australia. If one is suffering from wind turbine related illness I would suggest that they first asked their doctor whether they were a member of the “Doctor’s for Environment Australia”.
This is the Doctor’s for Environment Australia submission, to the SA wind farm enquiry.
One major argument is that wind turbines are good for rural communities because unemployment is bad for the health of humans and wind energy helps to solve that problem.
The submission mentions that:
1) “To our patients we try to provide a role model in the care of the environment for this is part of a preventative health ethos”; and
2) that “we support the rapid development of renewable energy sources which do not have significant health impacts”; and
3) “DEA has the expertise to address the first three terms of reference of the Committee”;
4) “The main component of wind turbine exposure that may have adverse effects for up to about 10 per cent of people nearby is audible noise”
Just to state the obvious, if you’re unemployed and suffering from depression the DEA recommends tender loving care. If you totally incapacitated and destroyed by wind turbines then I wonder how the DEA implements its “preventative health ethos” – would they offer euthanasia as a means to prevent another day of suffering?
Comment by mtumba djibouti on 08/15/2012 at 1:11 pm
The extent of corruption in the wind industry is mind-numbing, as is the extent of collusion between greedy industry and it’s sychophantic and fawning government ideologues and enablers. Our governments are failing us on this scam technology. Were it simply a scam, it would be tragic. Unfortunately it’s also a health and environmental menace and must be stopped.
Comment by Hube (France) on 08/20/2012 at 12:17 pm
Sorry, my friends (this is Hubert), I was away for a time, I see this article (thank you, Calvin!) and your posts only now.
So, to all of you: Calvin, Marsh, Andreas, Gail, Kaz, Sue, Johana, Mtumba, Jackie and Basil: THANK YOU!
Your words are very important to me because I know they’re not just words: you are behind them, as real as all the energy they give me.
I was saying to a friend yesterday night that I am now willing to LIVE through this turbine nightmare, I won’t let it paralyse me as it has for so much time, and one of the reasons for this is the thought that, if I ever let those IWTs destroy me or my life, then I would not only destroy myself or my life, but I would also destroy everything all the people who help me are giving me: Understanding, compassion, care, shared anger, a sense of community, and then knowledge, advice, etc. All of this is REAL. It travels through words and around the world and its effects are REAL, too. Words are conveyors — but as beautiful as they may be, their writer will always be more beautiful! — and what I see in them and beyond them are the real persons who sent them.
So, thank you, my dear overseas friends, thank you so much!
Comment by mtumba djibouti on 08/24/2012 at 10:03 pm
Hubert—best to you. I weep for your horrible experience. The words probably aren’t apropos, but I think the spirit in Piaf’s magnificent song, “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien,” may be. Her strength is boundless and has often comforted me.
“… Non! Rien de rien …
Non! Je ne regrette rien …
Car ma vie, car mes joies
Aujourd’hui ça commence avec toi!”
We are all in this together! I hope the strength she gives me may somehow convey to you. Cheers.