Re: ?? Harold McCloskey Info

[rkathren@tricity.wsu.edu (ron kathren)]

The Hanford americium case was initially published in the October 1983 issue
of Health Physics.  The postmortem data detailing all findings and the
dosimetry appeared in the September 1995 issue.  

For other related information, see the USTUR Home Page at
www.tricity.wsu.edu/htmls/ustur/page1.html or simply do a search for USTUR>

Ron Kathren
Director, US Transuranium
  and Uranium Registries


>Dear Radsafers:
>
>In yesterday's Washington Post (5/5) was an article on the Hanford
reservation. One tid-bit of information that wasn't
>explored to deeply was the story of Harold McCloskey. Dubbed in the article
as the "Atomic Man", McCloskey is
>identified as a "technician who survived a 1976 accident at Hanford that
sprayed his face with the largest human
>dose of radiation ever recorded. He became the most thoroughly studied
nuclear victim in America...After the
>accident, McCloskey was almost blind and his face could set off Geiger
counters 50 feet away." This quote begs the
>following question from inquiring minds:
>
>1) How did the accident occur?
>2) What's the best estimate on how much radiation he received?
>
>BTW in the article continues with the following.."But he (McCloskey) was
pro-Hanford until the end (he died of a
>heart attack in 1987). 'Just forget about me being anti-nuclear, because
I'm not,' he said a decade after the accident.
>'We need nuclear energy'"
>
>Carey A. Johnston
>EPA
>Radiation Protection Division
>http://www.epa.gov/oar/oria_rpd.html
>johnston.carey@epamail.epa.gov
>(202) 233 9341
>
>