A FORMER coach driver is taking legal action against a Spanish hotel where he was exposed to deadly bacteria that left him fighting for his life and killed his colleague.

Shaun Eaton had been working as a long-distance coach driver for Crewe-based Mikro Coaches, when he contracted Legionnaires disease at the Club Aire Libre, Costa Brava, in April 2001.

Mr Eaton, aged 45, of Almond Avenue, Crewe, pictured below, shared a room with his colleague George Cross while accompanying a group of schoolchildren and teachers to the resort in Tossa Del Mar.

Three days into the trip, Mr Eaton began to suffer severe headaches and lethargy, so 59-year-old Mr Cross, from Kidsgrove, took the wheel for the journey back home.

But the father-of-four experienced extreme tiredness as he drove through France and crashed the coach.

When the pair arrived home they were both admitted to hospital where they were diagnosed with Legionnaires disease.

Mr Cross died days later at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire.

Mr Eaton spent several days in the intensive care unit at Crewe's Leighton Hospital before being transferred to a specialist unit at Glenfield Hospital in Leicestershire.

The father-of-five spent more than a month in hospital and was unable to work for four years.

Mr Eaton is involved in a legal wrangle after the hotels' insurers accepted liability for the exposure but failed to adequately consider the full extent of the pain, suffering and loss Mr Eaton has experienced and may continue to face in years to come.

It emerged that the hotel had failed to act on recommendations made by the local district health office following a similar incident just months before Mr Eaton's stay.

Mr Eaton told The Sentinel: "This wasn't a bit of sickness and diarrhoea. My colleague died on my birthday. The doctors had virtually given up on me.

"My life will never be the same again.

"The hotel owners and insurers admitted they were at fault but they wouldn't reach an agreement on the payout.

"They offered me £11,000 which for a four-year spell out of work was just ludicrous."

Mr Eaton, who has now received an interim payment and is waiting for a final settlement figure, which he should receive by April, said he just hoped the hotel had since acted on district health office recommendations.

He added: "I just want the hotel bosses and their insurers to do the decent thing so I can do my best to put this nightmare behind me."

Philip Banks, from Irwin Mitchell solicitors, who is representing Mr Eaton, said: "Just weeks before our client fell ill at this hotel an investigation revealed that the level of the organism legionella in the hot water supply was strong enough to create a risk of infection. The hotel's management were advised to take immediate action, but failed to do so.

"It is an utter disgrace that this warning from the Spanish district health office was not properly heeded.

"As a result, one man lost his life and Mr Eaton has suffered greatly as a result of exposure to this deadly disease.

"At just 36 years of age he was left battling for his life. Mr Eaton's ongoing condition has been complex.

"He has required regular evaluation by medical experts so that his long-term prognosis and the effect of permanent symptoms upon his daily life could be properly assessed.

"We are hopeful that we will soon reach agreement on a final settlement for our client so that he will finally have access to reasonable, fair compensation that takes into consideration the suffering he has endured."

Mr Cross's family also took legal action against the hotel's insurers, settling in October 2005.

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