© CNN
Theresa Devine and Steve Esmond
Two Delaware boys
are in a coma and their father still is unable to talk or move two weeks after they became sick -- perhaps from pesticide exposure, federal officials say -- during a trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands, their lawyer said Saturday.
Steve Esmond, his teenage sons and the teens' mother fell ill more than two weeks ago in St. John, where they were renting a villa at the Sirenusa resort.
The family was airlifted to hospitals in the United States. The boys, 16 and 14, were in critical condition at a Philadelphia hospital on Saturday, the family's lawyer, James Maron of Delaware, said.
"The boys are in rough shape," Maron said.
"The family are all fighters," he added. "They're fighting for everything right now. I understand it's a long recovery."
Esmond, also being treated at a hospital, is conscious but
cannot move, Maron said. The teens' mother, Theresa Devine, was treated at a hospital but released, and is now in occupational therapy, Maron said.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Friday that the presence of a pesticide at the rented villa in St. John may have caused the illnesses, which were reported to the EPA on March 20.
Paramedics were called to the villa, which the family began had been renting since March 14.
Comment: The EPA and the U.S. Department of Justice? The interest in a pesticide poisoning at a resort in the Virgin Islands is puzzling. Hundreds of thousands of people are poisoned by pesticides every year in the continental U.S. and the government could really care less.