The fate of the most radioactive men in the world
Miraculously surviving despite absorbing 500 times more radiation than standard, Harold R McCluskey spent the rest of his life in estrangement at home.
A chemical explosion caused Harold R McCluskey's body to be covered with radioactive material and broken glass when he was on duty at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation radioactive burial site in Washington, USA on August 30, 1976, according to Long Room.
McCluskey, 64, survived despite the largest amount of radioactivity ever recorded in history and was dubbed the "Atomic Man". What is more surprising is that he continued to live for another 11 years and died from causes not related to the accident and no signs of cancer in the body.
At that time, McCluskey was working as an expert in high-end chemical handling equipment. His task is to collect americi, a synthetic byproduct of plutonium isotopes. Americi is a highly radioactive material, used in smoke detectors and bombs.
Harold R McCluskey in the sick room.(Photo: Ministry of Energy).
The lab closed for four months after a strike and McCluskey was cautious when he started working again. Before that, he was warned to pay attention when working with chemicals for a long time. But McCluskey's boss asked him to do the job.
McCluskey followed the request. When he was working in the room, a chemical reaction caused the isolation chamber to explode. Since the explosion until the laboratory was destroyed in March, the door of the room was completely sealed to isolate the radioactivity that took place inside.
Michele Gerber, author of the book On The Home Front: The Cold War Legacy of the Hanford Site published in 1997n, describing in detail the previous series of incidents at the horror of McCluske."He saw brown smoke columns accumulating in the quarantine chamber. He realized he should not stay there and was about to turn and run as soon as the explosion occurred," Gerber wrote.
McCluskey's rubber exclusive mask was torn. While panting, he breathed in radioactive smoke, his lungs covered with toxic americi . Fragments of glass and metal smashed all over his skin. Acid shot into his eyes and was stunned and temporarily blind.
Within a few minutes, McCluskey absorbed the largest amount of americi ever recorded in humans, 500 times the standard of practice , according to Dr. Bryce Breitenstein, a doctor at the Hanford Environmental Health Association, who directly treated for McCluskey.
With a body covered in blood, McCluskey was taken to the Hanford Emergency Detox Facility, a windowless building in Richland, Washington, where he stayed for nearly three weeks in a state of almost complete isolation. McCluskey's wife and two daughters could only stand 10 meters away from him due to concern about the amount of radiation still emitted from his body. Finally, McCluskey and his wife moved to live in a camping car parked outside the facility.
'Of the 9 doctors, 4 people think I have a 50% chance of surviving. The others only shook their heads', McCluskey shared in People magazine in 1984.
Watched by a team of gas masks and protective clothing, McCluskey could not see or hear them clearly. For 5 months, doctors used tweezers to pick up pieces of glass and ultra-small metal that plugged into his skin.
The explosion originates from an isolation chamber.(Photo: Ministry of Energy).
Medical staff washes and shaves McCluskey every day. They also gave him 600 doses of zinc DTPA , an experimental drug that helped him release radioactive substances.
"The deep decontamination process is long, difficult and never completed , " said Dr. Eugene Carbaugh.
When McCluskey returned home in January 1977, he faced another pain. In his home town of Prosser in Washington state, he is known as "The Atomic Man".
Although the treatment process removed most of the ammonium in his body, enough for the radioactivity detector to not ring when he reached near the head, the people around him thought he was infectious.
McCluskey retired and for many years, he wore gloves in one hand to prevent the risk of infection from the amount of radioactivity in his body.
McCluskey was treated like a social side. Some friends even called and said "Harold, I love you very much but I may never visit your house". In 1984, McCluskey shared that he alternately shave barber shops because he did not want to negatively affect their business.
After the accident, McCluskey had many radiation-related health problems such as kidney infection, 4 times heart failure and cataract surgery in both eyes. He sued the federal government for losses after the accident and in 1977, he won a $ 275,000 lawsuit in the suit against the US Department of Energy, the direct agency operating the Hanford facility.
The lab where McCluskey was in danger was destroyed in March 2017.(Photo: Tobin Fricke).
McCluskey became the subject of research for many doctors for the rest of his life. He died of a pre-existing heart condition on August 17, 1987 at the age of 75. An autopsy found no signs of cancer. If McCluskey lived longer, he could get the disease, according to Carbaugh.
The Americium Recovery Facility, later renamed by the Hanford staff as McCluskey's room, was never used anymore by authorities concerned about the possibility of radioactivity in the air, said Mark Heeter, spokesman. said the officer at the Ministry of Energy.
In 2010, workers wearing radiation-resistant clothes began cleaning McCluskey's room. They removed all contaminated equipment from the facility and emptied into Hanford landfill in New Mexico. Then, they sprayed a substance that helped the radioactive material settle to the ground. When taking precautions, they officially destroyed the facility nearly 6 years later.
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