(NewsNation) — Nearly two years after a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, caused a chemical explosion, resident Hilary Flint says she still feels its detrimental effects on her health.
Flint was forced to move when chemicals began to seep into the air, making her sick.
If Flint goes back to her home, which was near the derailment, she will still get rashes and other symptoms.
“It’s something a lot of community members are being diagnosed with and experiencing,” she said.
Not only that, the community is still “fractured,” Flint said on “NewsNation Live” on Monday.
“When you’re from small towns, they’re very close-knit — where now we don’t have that same type of feeling in the (Pennsylvania) or Ohio communities that were affected,” Flint said.
Flint says she is “incredibly” disappointed that residents still don’t have access to health monitoring or care that they need, so she hopes that Vice President JD Vance follows through on the promises he made to those affected by the train derailment.
Vance, a former Republican Ohio senator, has called for more chemical testing in East Palestine. He and then-Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown also urged the Department of Health and Human Services to set up a voluntary disease registry for those exposed to toxic chemicals.
“It just seems like the process has been incredibly slow-moving while people are just continuing to get sicker every day,” Flint said. “So I hope now that President Trump and Vice President Vance are in office that they can get this moving quickly because it’s something that JD Vance ran on.”
