Arsenic victims seek answers Baldacci visits Bangor hospital

BANGOR – There’s a neat stack of newspapers in the corner of Ralph Ostlund’s hospital room still waiting to be read.

On their pages, the 79-year-old New Sweden man hoped to find a reason behind the April 27 arsenic poisonings that sent him and 15 of his fellow parishioners at Gustaf Adolph Evangelical Lutheran Church to area hospitals.

“I think about it and I can’t believe it’s happening,” said a weakened Ostlund, fiddling with the collar of his blue hospital gown inside Eastern Maine Medical Center’s intensive care unit in Bangor.

Sunday was the first day Ostlund learned why he fell violently ill two weeks earlier after drinking 21/2 cups of arsenic-laced coffee at a church reception.

Until Sunday, he had been “unresponsive,” according to family members, who gradually told Ostlund the facts of the case as they knew them.

The information came in startling bits and pieces: His friend Walter Reid Morrill, 78, died as a result of what police say was an intentional poisoning.

Daniel Bondeson, 53, Ostlund’s fellow church member and skiing partner, apparently played a role.

Five days after the incident, Bondeson committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest as police progressed in their investigation, which still is continuing.

“It’s sad,” Ostlund softly muttered.

According to hospital staff, Ostlund’s false teeth still are soaking in a solution in an attempt to leach out all of the arsenic that might remain.

Before the brief Sunday morning interview in his hospital room, Ostlund and several other victims received a visit from Gov. John Baldacci, who reminisced with Ostlund about an earlier meeting at a parade in Aroostook County.

“You’re pretty tough,” Baldacci said in the 10-minute bedside visit, during which the two shook hands and exchanged a few jokes. “I wish I was half as tough as you are.”

The meeting left Ostlund smiling and Baldacci marveling at the elderly New Sweden man’s strength, and that of the small farming community that has yet to come to grips with the tragedy that shocked townspeople two weeks earlier.

“They’ve been through a lot,” Baldacci said outside the hospital. “But inside there I sensed a spirit that they’re ready to roll up their sleeves and go at it again.”

Ostlund is one of seven patients at the Bangor hospital. Three are listed in serious condition, and four are said to be in fair condition. Eight other victims, hospitalized at Cary Medical Center in Caribou, have been released.

Family members said hospital staff advised them that it would be at least another two weeks before Ostlund could return home, which the avid golfer jokingly described as a “par 4 from the church.”

During the ordeal, the hospital’s bustling ICU has served as a safe haven for the New Sweden victims, with hospital staff keeping the parishioners together, although some are well enough to leave the unit.

“They’re very tight,” nursing supervisor Marcia Wren said.

Ostlund’s youngest daughter, Carole Ringer of Waterville, said her father – who has made marked improvement in the past few days – was starting to read newspaper coverage of the poisoning that brought a horde of national media to the small Aroostook County town of 625 people.

“Now that we’ve told him what happened, he wants to know why,” said Ringer, who held her father’s hand throughout much of the interview. “He just wants to know everything.”

From his hospital bed, church member Dale Anderson also wanted answers.

“I guess I just don’t understand,” a stoic Anderson said, surrounded by family members in a room near Ostlund’s. “You just have to wonder why someone would do something like that.

“I don’t know what the heck happened,” continued Anderson, whose unshaven mustache is filling in above his bushy, gray beard. “I guess the only other thing I can say is I hope it never happens again.”