Letter carriers face new fears, uncertainty about anthrax

EWING, N.J. -- When he makes his daily stop at Ewing Family Dentistry, letter carrier Brenton Domitrovic no longer hands the mail to the receptionist. He is not to drop it on the counter next to Judy Al-Hilaly's desk, either.

She is worried about anthrax.

"Wait, wait, wait," she says as he steps into the small office. She rushes toward him with an empty cardboard box, holding it -- arms extended in front of her -- as if she were throwing out a smelly diaper.

Once she drops it on the floor, Domitrovic knows what to do. He drops the letters into the box. Neither mentions the a-word. It's understood.

"I don't want them to be plopped here, because it would go whoosh, up into the air," she says, gesturing upward with her hands.

When you deliver mail from a post office where an employee was diagnosed with skin anthrax, it doesn't take long to go from public servant to disease-carrying pariah, in your customers' eyes.

"When it first happened, when I would walk into a store, it would suddenly get quiet. No one wanted to look at me," says the 25-year-old Domitrovic, whose route is in suburban Trenton. "And I had a lot of people on my route who would say, 'Leave it on the porch."'

Five people in New Jersey have confirmed cases of anthrax, and there are two other suspected cases. All but one are postal workers.

New Jersey authorities believe all of the state's anthrax infections can be traced to the Hamilton postal processing center, which handles mail for 46 post offices. It handled three anthrax-tainted letters sent to NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw, the New York Post and Capitol Hill.

A Postal Service doctor prescribed Cipro for Domitrovic at first. Now, he is taking another antibiotic he cannot pronounce. He wears gloves when sorting mail at the post office, but not on his route. He strips and throws his clothes in the washing machine as soon as he gets home at night.

"They said we've all been exposed, but I can't walk around with gloves and a mask on. Customers won't take mail from me," he says.

Jeanette Jones, 43, who works from the same post office, hates some of the changes she has been forced to make.

"I used to take mail from people on the street, passing by. Now, I don't. I tell them to go to the nearest mailbox. That bothers me," the 14-year veteran says.

The regulars on her route are sympathetic. Though the Postal Service provides gloves, three customers have given her backup supplies.

"One day, she was walking down the street and I saw her with these filthy, tattered gloves on," says Bobbi Blumenthal, 48. "So I gave her a Ziploc bag full of rubber gloves. I worry about her safety, and I didn't want her to be in danger."