The 72-year-old ex-coal miner has black lung disease, or pneumoconiosis, which leaves him breathless and reaching for his puffer after only a few steps.
“It’s very hard to even talk about, I can’t do anything with my grandkids,” Mr Verrall sobbed at his home in Ipswich, west of Brisbane.
“They come outside here and play and all I can do is sit here and watch them, I just can’t do anything at all.”
Mr Verrall is one of six confirmed cases of black lung disease in Queensland.
He has welcomed a senate inquiry into the re-emergence of black lung, announced this week.
“I think it’s a good thing now the government’s stepped in,” he said on Friday.
“Because we’ve got to make it better for the younger generation coming into the mine and I’d hate to see them suffer the way I do.”
CFMEU Mining and Energy Division president Steve Smyth says the national probe needs to hear not only from victims but from large mining companies, radiologists, former mines inspectors and the Department of Natural Resources and Mines.
“These people need to front up and explain why, on their watch, they’ve allowed a disease they believed was eradicated … to suddenly emerge back in Queensland,” Mr Smyth said.
“And unfortunately this is the tip of the iceberg.”
The union boss said although there were six confirmed cases, with the youngest a 38-year-old man, the CFMEU also had a register of more than 150 people who were concerned they might have the illness, including about 20 people who were expected to be diagnosed.
Mr Smyth said about 150,000 X-rays in the state government’s mines department hadn’t been processed and current miners weren’t getting their X-rays read properly because Australian radiologists weren’t qualified to look for dust-related diseases.
“People like Percy, who worked his whole life, should be able to retire with dignity and respect and good health,” he said.
“Not be exposed to that by the inaction of a number of people from the coal companies all the way through to the government inspectors and the regulators and the doctors.”
Black lung disease is caused by breathing in coal dust over long periods.
The Senate Select Committee on Health will next month hold public hearings in Brisbane and Mackay.