The Atomic Man

The Atomic Man.   That was the destiny awaiting this young man seen here in his high school graduation picture.   I think that it's true what Forrest Gump's mother said that, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get".     I don't think that this young man knew what life's "box of chocolates" had in store for him.   Later in life he would become known as "The Atomic Man" as the result of a terrible radiation accident involving massive contamination.    

It was August 30, 1976 and he was working the midnight to 8:00 am shift at the Hanford Plutonium Finishing Plant located in the state of Washington.  

He was 64 years old and had been working at the Hanford plant as a Chemical Operations Technician since the 1940's.  

He was a seasoned veteran at his job.   Working with glove boxes to extract radioactive Americium-241.   It was a very large glove box.

It might be hard to visualize just what a glovebox is and how it is used and so here is a picture of what a typical small one looks like.

The glovebox isolates the material that you may be working with if it is hazardous.

Harold McCluskey was working as a chemical operations technician at the Hanford Plutonium Finishing Plant and more specifically in the Americium Recovery Facility.

             Hanford plant

At 2:45 am on that early Monday morning of August 30, 1976 when there was an explosion inside the glove box that Harold McCluskey was working at.

He was blown backwards and his gas mask was ripped from his face.   Pieces of metal and glass contaminated with Americium-241 were embedded in his face as well as breathing in Americium-241.   He also received a blast of nitric acid to his face which temporarily blinded him.   In a few seconds he had received 500 times the amount of Americium that was considered safe.   He was placed into isolation in the medical unit where they tried to decontaminate him but he was still radioactive, and thus became known as The Atomic Man.   He received free medical care for life and a settlement of $250,000 for his injuries.   He also received a life of radioactive contamination causing some of the townspeople to shun him.

There had been some speculation as to whether or not he might die from his radioactive contamination.   However, he lived another 11 years dying at the age of 75 from heart trouble.  An autopsy was performed and no cancers were found in his body.   He was buried in the cemetery of the nearby town of Prosser where he lived.

 

His wife Elladale lived for another 16 years after his death and passed away in 2003.

 

It is amazing how much an individuals life can change in a matter of a few seconds.   I was glad that I could find some pictures of Harold McCluskey to include in the blog to remind us that Harold McCluskey was not a fictional character but a real person who undoubtedly had the same ambitions and hopes that we all have.   Let's not forget this individual and his story.

For a similar story of another individual do an internet search on The Radioactive Boy Scout or David Hahn and an absolutely fascinating story (real life) will be revealed.

                 David Hahn

              David Hahn

Have a good day of surfing the internet for interesting articles to read.    Lew

 

 

Merry Christmas to all

It is Christmas morning and we have had breakfast and opened our Christmas presents.   Here is one of the gifts that I wanted, a 32 GB memory stick (you can never have too much memory).   I was surprised to see so much memory in such a small device.   I find this degree of  miniaturization absolutely amazing.   I just can't imagine filling this memory stick with 32 GB of files, but pictures do seem to use up the memory of my 1 GB memory stick pretty fast.
We got lots of presents including our princess of a cat, Tammy.

Here she is looking bored, trying to decide whether or not to jump up on the couch and take a nap.   Yes, very pampered.   Some would say spoiled but I prefer the word pampered.   To entertain her we got a remote controlled mouse.   She should have a lot of fun with it.

I will let you know in a future blog how Tammy the cat reacts to her toy mouse running around all over the place.

Christmas just isn't Christmas without a Christmas tree.   Mary did a fine job on decorating the tree.   The tree is really pretty at night when the bulbs are giving off their rich colors.

And did I mention Mary's Christmas Cake.   It was a chocolate cake and she added maraschino cherries inside the cake (yummy) as well as walnuts.   Then for the coup-de-grace she put more walnuts on top of the red frosting as well as Christmas sprinkles.   And what a nice deep red the frosting is.

Merry Christmas to all with hopes that you got lots of presents.   And for those of you living up north in snow country instead of down here in warm Florida I must end this on a bit of not-so-funny humor.     Lew

Armed Forces Reserves

Armed Forces Reserve

This stamp was issued on May 21, 1955.

I found one of the uniforms in this picture perplexing.   I know that the individual on the far left is a Marine.   And the individual on the far right is Air Force and the fellow next to the air force is Navy.   And in the middle is Army.   But what about the individual between the Army and the Marine?   Looks like Navy to me.   I went on the internet and researched the stamp and found that it was issued on May 21, 1955 (armed forces day).  I also found out that the individual between the Army and the Marine was the Coast Guard.   Here is a picture of an individual in his Coast Guard uniform.

His name is E. J. Jarvis II and the picture was taken in the spring of 1963.   He was in the Coast Guard and his uniform matches the picture in the stamp perfectly.  

Here is a group picture of some men in their Coast Guard uniforms.

Yep, their uniforms match also.   So now we know the services represented on the stamp: Marines, Coast Guard, Army, Navy, Air Force.   But isn't there one service missing?   What about the Merchant Marine?   Would the term United States Maritime Service be more appropriate?   They wore uniforms and a lot of them got killed in World War II when their ships were sunk by U-boats.   Perhaps there isn't a Merchant Marine Reserve like the other five services.    Anyone have any ideas on this?   Have a good day and please post any thoughts that you may have on this in the "comments section".   Lew