Sherman lingers over an event that occurred one day while he was alone on the bank with his secret. “While I was dumping the heavy bottoms in the canal, I saw a bird fly into the fumes and fall instantly into the water. It was like he’d been shot. I put two shovels out into the mud, so I could walk on them into the marsh without sinking too far down. I walked out and picked up the bird. Its wings and body didn’t move. It looked dead, but its heart was still beating. I grew up on a farm, and I know about birds. I walked back on the shovels to the bank with the bird. I held its head in my right hand and its wings and body in my left hand.

“I blew into its beak and worked it up and down. Then it started breathing again. Its eyes opened. But the rest of its body still didn’t move. I put it on the hood of my truck, which was warm. Then I left the bird to go check my tar buggy. But when I got back, the bird was gone. It had flown away. So that was one thing good.”

During the afternoon, Sherman circles back to the story of the bird, alternating between it and the story of the tar buggy. “I knew what I did was wrong,” he repeats. “Toxins are a killer. And I’m very sorry I did it. My mama would not have wanted me to do it. I never told anybody this before, but I knew how not to get caught.” It was as if Sherman had performed the company’s crime and assumed the company’s guilt as his own.

But, like the bird, Sherman himself became a victim. He grew ill from his exposure to the chemicals. After his hydrocarbon burn, “My feet felt like clubs, and I couldn’t bend my legs and rise up, so the company doctor ordered me put on medical leave. I kept visiting the company doctor to see if I was ready to come back, but he kept saying I shouldn’t come back until I could do a deep knee bend.” Sherman took a medical leave of eight months and then returned to work. But not for long.
What does the incident with the bird reveal about PPG's effects on the environment?

The chemicals that Sherman dumped helped the environment.

The chemicals that Sherman dumped were safe for the environment.

The chemicals that Sherman dumped were harmful to the environment.

The chemicals that Sherman dumped had no effect on the environment.