Imagine being a new employee at this place and seeing a welded up door. What's behind that door boss? That's the McCluskey Room. We don't go in there any more. Not since the accident...
At first I thought "Why would they build the decontamination facility 25 miles away from the plant? Why not build it next door?" Then I realized if the entire plant blew up, the decontamination facility could be contaminated if it were close by. 25 miles away seem about the right distance. Not to close, but not to far either.
There were other decon facilities on site throughout, the decon facility they took him to that was 25mi away was built next to the Hospital in town. It was for monitoring patients that had been exposed, not just gross decon.
Reminds me of the guy who waved his arm inside a particle accelerator because he couldn't find the beam. His arm got burned but other than that nothing really bad happened
The 'accident' that's the defining event of the documentary "Hole in the Head: A Life Revealed" is also definitely worth mentioning, though it really ought to be provided a dedicated episode. A child, used as a 'guinea pig' by government agencies, is left permanently, painfully and dangerously disfigured. He managed to live quite a long life enduring this burden.
Reminds me of Cody's Lab. There was a video where he talked about how he cleans up mercury spills and he said he just sweeps it up with a broom. Not the greatest strategy, since mercury breaks up into tiny droplets when you agitate it like that.
Wow, I'd never heard of this incident, I had no idea that there was such a long-lived case study on high radiation dose exposure! Just a quick technical note: Lead-glass as used in radioactive shielding isn't actually "lead lined", rather lead is infused into the glass itself, literally dissolved into the glass during manufacture so that it retains its transparency (simply lining it with a sheet of lead would make it opaque, after all, rendering it somewhat pointless!). As a result, lead glass tends to have a distinct yellow colour, and be remarkably heavy.
The yellow colour is not due to lead. Glass with only lead added remains colourless. However gamma ray exposure will make the glass brown, becoming increasingly dark until it is useless as a window. Radiation shielding glass has not only lead but also cerium added, the cerium prevents the colour change to dark brown. The side effect is that adding cerium makes the glass yellow.
@@CoastalSphinx as far as I’m aware, that yellow tint is also responsible for the idea of radioactive things glowing green when Cherenkov radiation is blue in reality.
@@NeedsMoreBirds From what I've seen, it mostly has to do with Vaseline glass, which was pretty well available, and has a distinct and beautiful green glow under black light, and Undark (and other radium/zinc paint used at the time) which glows green, too, and was another really strong influencing factor, as radium was pretty much what brought the idea of radioactivity into the public eye. Wouldn't be surprised if the leaded glass also had influence, though! History is complex, especially for misconceptions and stereotypes
I worked in that building (Z plant, or PFP) on several occasions, and passed the McKlusky Room several times while walking down some work areas I was contracted to help clean up. Virtually all of the building is gone now, chomped up and carted off all the way to ground level. Some of the work I did made it possible to move the glove box that exploded out of the area it was in. Interesting story. I also helped dispose of the ambulance (not quite a final disposition, but it aint going anywhere for a while) that took him to the hospital.
People who work with fire (and coal and dangerous chemicals like bleach or acid and so on) can get burned but still recognize its value. He knew he was working something dangerous and things could go wrong. So it did.
I mean. I worked with nitric and sulfuric acid in college. They could severely burn me... i still worked with them because I understud and respected thare purpose. Nuclear power can save lives and inprove the human condition. Sure thare will be accidents, and there terrible and the losses mournful. That doesn't mean we should stop. Humanitys march out of the darkness is built on our broken backs.
Well, the sad (or great thing) about nuclear power is: Its currently our best option until we discover or utilize a safer, more efficient and more powerful energy sourse (Like nuclear Fusion. Which is being worked on heavily atm) Because, Nuclear energy, despite the waste it produces: Its cheap (relative. You need them to run long and steady to make them worth). NE is *completely* environmental friendly as no fossile gases/fuel or other things like it are being produced as biproducts. And you can get *alot* of energy out of it. Thats why its currently the best we have. Its by far not the best we *could* have, but we dont have another, actual option as of now. Thats why I stay positive about it. Its bad, overall, because Humans are fallable and it can create horror shows. But all the new energy sources (except Solar and Geothermal energy. As they should be invested into *heavily* ) arent compettive enough for our needs. Keep them. As long as we dont have Fusion and Im sure we can resolve it. Also. Why arent we just yeeting that into space? Like all the waste. Space is radiocative anyway. Our technology is far enough to grant a safe one-way ticket and it would be done and over with it.
This is my great grandfather. This was mostly accurate. You left out some stuff but very well researched. The reason they believe why he survived that amount of radiation, was that a couple years before this his gloves got breached and some radioactive material got under his skin. The dr cut out the contaminated part of his finger. But it was believed that they didn’t get it all and his body metabolized it. I never got to meet him he died before I was born but my great grandmother talked about him. Also part of that settlement was a house in Posser and a Ford 150 lol which we still have
@@maszina8187 It’s pretty cool, wish they would have reached out to the family to get more information. Not sure how many would have actually talked about it but would have been worth a shot.
The part about the heart attacks, lol, that WASN'T because of the accident, that's genetics! His brother, my father suffered the same thing, including cataract.
Thanks. I grew up in the Tri-Cities, the name given to the communities near the Hanford Area. My mom worked there from the mid-'70s until around 2017. In the late '70s she was leaving a job site at Hanford and set off a radiation detector. As she described it, she had "picked up a zoomie." Initially, they wanted her completely strip for a decontamination shower and scrub down (just like in Silkwood). My mom basically said, no way in Hell, removed her overalls, and walked back through the radiation detector. Thankfully, the detector did not go off that time, and her old overalls are now part of America's ever growing inventory of nuclear waste.
I love when people cover something Hanford. I grew up about 20 miles from the Hanford site. There is museum exhibit all about Hanford there and I have done the glove thing. It's all sad but fascinating at the same time.
My dad used to go have lunch at Harold's house with his grandpa growing up! He was a kind man from what I'm told. My dad works at Hanford now and the day the McClusky room was torn down was a huge milestone! My great grandpa used to work at the PFP with him 😁
My grandfather was the lead millerite out at handford when McCluskey caught his dose. After they put him on the hill to live Gramps used to go up there and have lunch with him through his bedroom window. RIP Mr.Mclusky
@@Egress. yep, because Rene got it backwards. detectors radiate constantly, and if smoke is present the radiation does not reach the detector and alarm goes off.
It's wrong. Radiation doesn't give you heart attacks or cataracts or kidney infections. It gives you radiation poisoning and cancer. That's it. The ionizing radiation either kills living cells outright and makes you sick/dead or they mix up your DNA and increase your cancer risk later. There is no conclusive scientific evidence anywhere that says it does anything more than that.
@@rwaitt14153 Radiation jas manny effects on living organisms that are not direcly aperant. You can get Organ failures and heart atacks from radiation exposure.
@@rwaitt14153 cancer is not one specific illness, like the name would suggest. It's rather a term which includes many wierd things your cells do, but we don't exactly know which things. If we did, we could cure it by now. Cells doing things they're not supposed to do can cause everything, from heart attacks to organ failure to growing a fully operational third arm.
One tiny nitpick. When describing “right” and “left” medically it is from the patient’s point of view. Patient “right” you would look to the left. You described “right side” but your graphic has the glass etc on the patient left. The photos show it is indeed mainly right side injuries. Still an excellent video. Thanks for posting it!
Love your videos! I'm nit-picking here......... The Hanford site is a big place - the aerial photo you are using is of N-reactor on the Columbia River. The McCluskey room is part of the now demolished Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) located on the plateau more than 10kms to the south. But still a great story!
fun fact (or at least a fun story from my mom, who's a Hanford downwinder) a lot of crops in the following years were.. odd to say the least! along with cows being born with more defects than a normal, usually. she claims to this day that the plant is built on gravel deposits nearby a river. im unsure how true this is, really. but she is a geology major, so i trust she has some idea what shes saying.
As usual, nice video. If possible, could you cover the Seveso accident? It's kind of too unknown, although it happened in the middle of Europe, and especialy the cleanup and disposal was horendously botched. Cheers, mate.
It's actually Richland, Washington. Not Richmond. My fiancée is from Richland, where a lot of the town still works at Hanford, so I visit quite often. 😊
I live in Washington, and while I'd never heard of this in particular, Hanford is pretty infamous here -- it's the most contaminated nuclear site in the Western Hemisphere, which is not a record any of us are thrilled about.
I don't think there's that much info about it, but you think you could look at the Soviet N-1 rocket? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket) Rushed, under-budget, secrety shenanigans, massive explosions, all in there.
If anyone ever gets the opportunity, take the guided tour of the Hanford Site in Washington State. It's probably the most impressive man-made structure I have ever seen.
Not really a nuclear related story, but I find the Brio Superfund site, and the stories that led up to it to be fascinating, would love to see you cover it someday. It's a toxic waste dump in a nearby city from where I live here in Texas, near Friendswood. Neighborhood was built very close to where this aging plant was, and it shut down shortly after people began settling into the neighborhood. People discovered lots of health issues, babies born with defects, and found parts of the land near the baseball field and neighborhood that appeared to have tar and toxic chemicals leaking out of it. Pretty crazy, the land is still closed off to this day decades later
So crazy cause this story is about my hometown Richland Wa. Was just there last week doing some road work for them All the stories I hear out there are just disastrous as the next roads that lead to nowhere but are entrances for underground burial sites and just the amount of radiation spilling into the Columbia River from underground. You have to look that up
Americium-241 is used in Smoke Detectors. Typically a smoke detector contains 2μg of Am-241. So the 100g of Am-241 Harold was dealing with, is enough to make 50 million smoke detectors
Thanks for that little bit of extra context. When he said $1500 per gram, I was thinking that sounded wildly expensive for a material used in something so cheap and disposable.
They transported Harold to Kadlec hospital in Richland, Washington. As a Nuclear Chemical Operator for over 28 years I have heard the story of Harold's accident many times over the years, the man that famously survived seeing the "Blue Flash"... something you NEVER want to experience!
I have heard of people who have high exposure to radiation and lived while others died. It would be interesting to know why some people are more sensitive than others.
Factors include type of radiation , body weight ( ie the fatter you are the better in terms of survival ) the areas which were contaminated . The total area contaminated , the amount of contamination . The total time of exposure . Also if you have any exposed wounds those are much more susceptible to absorbing radiation than intact skin . Also the type and level of treatment has a massive impact
Whixh headline would you buy, "local idiot attempts dangerous jerry rigged reactor, stopped by authorities" or "poor young interprising scientist efforts stamped out by authoritarian officials"?
Recent subscriber after finding your channel last week and I wanted to let you know how much I enjoy the channel. But I'm afraid I might end up on a Homeland Security watch list.
@@Wafflepudding lol good one. Green sand glass left in the original bomb tests here (Nevada, USA) is where we first found Americium. It's where we first found many isotopes and elements we didn't have before.
I'm going to guess that a strike shutting the place down right before this qualifies as "foreshadowing..." seems like he wasn't surprised and filed himself under all the other US workers injured at plants with inadequate safety.
It's rather telling that mid-century American science fantasy has people gain superpowers from being exposed to radiation and become heroes, while in Japanese science fantasy of the same period, radiation births city-destroying kaiju.
Love your vids man. Everyone is always talking how clean nuclear is but no one realizes how toxic it actually is to all living things. Very informative and fun to watch too.
I think the dangers of radiation are pretty well known by everybody lmao. Still cleaner than coal/gas alternatives and more efficient than renewable alternatives. Nobody is suggestting that spent nuclear fuel is safe to play with
I worked in IT for a Hanford contractor from 2006-2008 - I wasn’t directly involved with any radiological “stuff”, but I did work on the computers used to maintain the dosimetry for Rad techs who were cleaning up the “cribs” (unlined disposal trenches) - actual reactor parts, including fuel rods had been “flushed out” from one of the “K” reactors at one point. Harold McKlusky’s story is legendary, but far from the only one. Also, it’s Richland, not “Richmond”.
Oscar Muffin Or you know, he actually wants to make a living and not give some dickhead map company all the money from a video for three seconds of usage.
16k a year in the 70s? That was actually pretty good,as houses in expensive areas were 20k. Clearly not worth his tragic experience, but just for perspective.
I was a child in the 70$, but I don't think $20,000ish would have been an expensive house most places in the US, and if I recall correctly, there were many in the trades making close to twice that and entry level teachers made about half that. So if I had to guess, I'd put that job at about $60,000 in 2020.
Funny thing, most of the people make around 75k or so a year now. It’s pretty good to work there minus the health problems. Also still a big oof that he endured that.
I think it's worth noting that it's primarily American comics that have the "radiation gives you superpowers" narrative. Take a Japanese story, and radiation turns you into a monster. Obviously, because of the different ends of the A-bomb these cultures have been, their stories/comics present different narratives. I'm only 17 seconds in so if it gets mentioned later I'm sorry for the unnecessary comment
Can you do one on HISASHI OUCHI that was exposed to an extreme amount of radiation. The doctors kept him alive (against his wishes) to see what would happen to him.
Am 241 is an Alpha emitter. It can’t penetrate the skin. Why did they seal off the room and only re-enter it decades later with ‘heavy protective suits’? There must have been other isotopes in there too?
$16,000 in '76 is about $72,000 today, no wonder he agreed, it was one of the best paying jobs plus had a great pension and insurance benefits in the area.
3.4 million smoke alarms, if you mean the household kind of smoke alarm. Those usually have 1 microcurie per alarm, so 1 million alarms is 1 curie, and Am-241 has specific activity of 3.4 curie for 1 gram.
Imagine being a new employee at this place and seeing a welded up door.
What's behind that door boss?
That's the McCluskey Room. We don't go in there any more. Not since the accident...
"That's the old passage to Ravenholm"
"Check Please!"
the employee gets curious and one day manages to take a peek in and sees a still living guy fused to the wall
@@philip2.2.12 lol that sounds like an scp
And then *Quick google search* Oh my god..
I'd like to hand in my 2 seconds notice, goodbye!
At first I thought "Why would they build the decontamination facility 25 miles away from the plant? Why not build it next door?" Then I realized if the entire plant blew up, the decontamination facility could be contaminated if it were close by. 25 miles away seem about the right distance. Not to close, but not to far either.
@@asbestosfibers1325 Mmmkay.
Not great, not terrible
K Roon exactly what i was looking for
There were other decon facilities on site throughout, the decon facility they took him to that was 25mi away was built next to the Hospital in town. It was for monitoring patients that had been exposed, not just gross decon.
Yeah, it'd be ironic if the decontamination facility was contaminated
Radioactivity may not give superpowers, but contact with the Elephant's Foot at Chernobyl would certainly change the course of my life!
Not if you don"t spend a day down there... but otherwise, you can see it in person and don't die from radiation poisoning !
Don't forget to lick it for maximum effectiveness.
@@jopheonholzorf It tastes like tingly!
@@taragwendolyn I think its tastes like green
Well, you’re not wrong....
😅
You should do a video on the man who had his head inside a particle accelerator when it was turned on!
Thanks for the suggestion!
...and lived.
Reminds me of the guy who waved his arm inside a particle accelerator because he couldn't find the beam. His arm got burned but other than that nothing really bad happened
pdorism “do not look into laser with remaining eye”
The 'accident' that's the defining event of the documentary "Hole in the Head: A Life Revealed" is also definitely worth mentioning, though it really ought to be provided a dedicated episode. A child, used as a 'guinea pig' by government agencies, is left permanently, painfully and dangerously disfigured. He managed to live quite a long life enduring this burden.
I'm impressed they tried that hard to help him, and that he took the accident so well.
Well they did have a special hospital for nuclear accidents & Dying on the job was a bad thing even back then -
"Too dangerous to clean up." -America
"Grab a broom" -USSR
You're probably right, haha. Tough a broom would be the worst way to go about it, a vacuum would be much safer.
@@thegreenpickel considering the cleanup of Chernobyl I don't think "safetey" was much of a concern
Or look at other videos of this channel.. ie Totskoye exercise.
I worked at a shop where molten lead baths were huge. If a broom was discovered que safety meetings and repremands being issued
Reminds me of Cody's Lab. There was a video where he talked about how he cleans up mercury spills and he said he just sweeps it up with a broom. Not the greatest strategy, since mercury breaks up into tiny droplets when you agitate it like that.
mad respect for this man for remaining pro nuclear. I hate it when people do the "It hurt me and is therefore bad!" thing.
Про таких говорят - "только могила исправит".
@@kotnapromke I wish I could say you were wrong...
@@seagie382 Wow, you caught that after three years. Props on your range.
my pet bunny bit me once, then we ate it
@@thomasbell7033 o7
Wow, I'd never heard of this incident, I had no idea that there was such a long-lived case study on high radiation dose exposure!
Just a quick technical note: Lead-glass as used in radioactive shielding isn't actually "lead lined", rather lead is infused into the glass itself, literally dissolved into the glass during manufacture so that it retains its transparency (simply lining it with a sheet of lead would make it opaque, after all, rendering it somewhat pointless!). As a result, lead glass tends to have a distinct yellow colour, and be remarkably heavy.
The yellow colour is not due to lead. Glass with only lead added remains colourless. However gamma ray exposure will make the glass brown, becoming increasingly dark until it is useless as a window. Radiation shielding glass has not only lead but also cerium added, the cerium prevents the colour change to dark brown. The side effect is that adding cerium makes the glass yellow.
@@CoastalSphinx Huh, neat! TIL, thank you :)
Is the lead glass similar to leaded crystal?
@@CoastalSphinx as far as I’m aware, that yellow tint is also responsible for the idea of radioactive things glowing green when Cherenkov radiation is blue in reality.
@@NeedsMoreBirds From what I've seen, it mostly has to do with Vaseline glass, which was pretty well available, and has a distinct and beautiful green glow under black light, and Undark (and other radium/zinc paint used at the time) which glows green, too, and was another really strong influencing factor, as radium was pretty much what brought the idea of radioactivity into the public eye. Wouldn't be surprised if the leaded glass also had influence, though! History is complex, especially for misconceptions and stereotypes
I worked in that building (Z plant, or PFP) on several occasions, and passed the McKlusky Room several times while walking down some work areas I was contracted to help clean up. Virtually all of the building is gone now, chomped up and carted off all the way to ground level. Some of the work I did made it possible to move the glove box that exploded out of the area it was in. Interesting story. I also helped dispose of the ambulance (not quite a final disposition, but it aint going anywhere for a while) that took him to the hospital.
Him still staying pro-nuclear after being irradiated is such a massive flex though.
People who work with fire (and coal and dangerous chemicals like bleach or acid and so on) can get burned but still recognize its value. He knew he was working something dangerous and things could go wrong. So it did.
I mean. I worked with nitric and sulfuric acid in college. They could severely burn me... i still worked with them because I understud and respected thare purpose. Nuclear power can save lives and inprove the human condition. Sure thare will be accidents, and there terrible and the losses mournful. That doesn't mean we should stop. Humanitys march out of the darkness is built on our broken backs.
@@katewarner-clement7558 kinda blows my mind that you were accepted into college with the mistakes you made several times in your comment
The guy toke it like a boss
Well, the sad (or great thing) about nuclear power is: Its currently our best option until we discover or utilize a safer, more efficient and more powerful energy sourse (Like nuclear Fusion. Which is being worked on heavily atm)
Because, Nuclear energy, despite the waste it produces: Its cheap (relative. You need them to run long and steady to make them worth). NE is *completely* environmental friendly as no fossile gases/fuel or other things like it are being produced as biproducts. And you can get *alot* of energy out of it.
Thats why its currently the best we have. Its by far not the best we *could* have, but we dont have another, actual option as of now.
Thats why I stay positive about it. Its bad, overall, because Humans are fallable and it can create horror shows. But all the new energy sources (except Solar and Geothermal energy. As they should be invested into *heavily* ) arent compettive enough for our needs.
Keep them. As long as we dont have Fusion and Im sure we can resolve it.
Also. Why arent we just yeeting that into space? Like all the waste. Space is radiocative anyway. Our technology is far enough to grant a safe one-way ticket and it would be done and over with it.
This is my great grandfather. This was mostly accurate. You left out some stuff but very well researched. The reason they believe why he survived that amount of radiation, was that a couple years before this his gloves got breached and some radioactive material got under his skin. The dr cut out the contaminated part of his finger. But it was believed that they didn’t get it all and his body metabolized it. I never got to meet him he died before I was born but my great grandmother talked about him.
Also part of that settlement was a house in Posser and a Ford 150 lol which we still have
not trying to be disrespectful but this reminds me of every zombie movie cut of the part you were bit at
Me when I lie extremely hard
How does it feel to find out there's an documentaty about your great grandfather?
@@maszina8187 It’s pretty cool, wish they would have reached out to the family to get more information. Not sure how many would have actually talked about it but would have been worth a shot.
The part about the heart attacks, lol, that WASN'T because of the accident, that's genetics! His brother, my father suffered the same thing, including cataract.
Thanks. I grew up in the Tri-Cities, the name given to the communities near the Hanford Area. My mom worked there from the mid-'70s until around 2017. In the late '70s she was leaving a job site at Hanford and set off a radiation detector. As she described it, she had "picked up a zoomie." Initially, they wanted her completely strip for a decontamination shower and scrub down (just like in Silkwood). My mom basically said, no way in Hell, removed her overalls, and walked back through the radiation detector. Thankfully, the detector did not go off that time, and her old overalls are now part of America's ever growing inventory of nuclear waste.
The regenerative abilities alongside medical prowess of humanity never ceases to amaze me, thank you very much for this video!
Yes it is amazing
Simultaneously the luckiest and unluckiest person to have lived
I love when people cover something Hanford. I grew up about 20 miles from the Hanford site. There is museum exhibit all about Hanford there and I have done the glove thing. It's all sad but fascinating at the same time.
Now I wonder if Harold from the "Fallout" games is a tribute to this guy.
well there goes my plans..
what will I do with all these smoke detectors??
Create a neutron source and make a superfund site in your parents back yard?
Oh, oh, oh, I know!
Detect smoke.
@@PlainlyDifficult tempting, although I seem to remember that not going too well for the last guy.
Are the Boy Scouts still offering the atomic patch?
@@K-Effect I heard they discontinued that one. :(
My dad used to go have lunch at Harold's house with his grandpa growing up! He was a kind man from what I'm told. My dad works at Hanford now and the day the McClusky room was torn down was a huge milestone! My great grandpa used to work at the PFP with him 😁
I live pretty close to handford. Check a few times a month to see if i glow in the dark or not. Great Vid as always Plainly.
Let’s hope you stay non luminous
@@PlainlyDifficult well me and members of my family who have worked on the site have been pretty successful at doing so so far.
@@wolfe5993 a lot of people that can't say the same thing.
At least you don't live near Langley, Virginia, I hear there's a lot of glow in the dark people there.
@@milespico7179 I understand that and I have the upmost respect for those that haven't faired aswell.
Oh god, poor man! What a way to find out who your friends are.
Poor guy indeed. I'm not sure I could have taken that stigma.
And just 1 year from retirement 😕
My grandfather was the lead millerite out at handford when McCluskey caught his dose. After they put him on the hill to live Gramps used to go up there and have lunch with him through his bedroom window. RIP Mr.Mclusky
Superpower: Can set of any smoke detector just by walking into the room.
It would actually make them less sensitive afaik.
@@Egress. yep, because Rene got it backwards. detectors radiate constantly, and if smoke is present the radiation does not reach the detector and alarm goes off.
you want to set off a detector without fire, use flour or baby powder that'll do it.
Imagine being the first person to enter that irradiated room in 30 years, it must have been a time capsule by that point.
Respect to Harold. What a legend.
I work at a remediated yellow cake production facility that was turned into government offices. I feel stronger every day.
hmmmm. okay..
He had a pre-existing heart condition, but the 4 heart attacks were said to be radiation related? That doesn't make any sense.
It's wrong. Radiation doesn't give you heart attacks or cataracts or kidney infections.
It gives you radiation poisoning and cancer. That's it. The ionizing radiation either kills living cells outright and makes you sick/dead or they mix up your DNA and increase your cancer risk later. There is no conclusive scientific evidence anywhere that says it does anything more than that.
@@rwaitt14153 trauma can induce these issues it’s not unlikely they accelerated
@@Swagoi cataracts can came from exposure of ionizing radiation.
@@rwaitt14153 Radiation jas manny effects on living organisms that are not direcly aperant.
You can get Organ failures and heart atacks from radiation exposure.
@@rwaitt14153 cancer is not one specific illness, like the name would suggest. It's rather a term which includes many wierd things your cells do, but we don't exactly know which things. If we did, we could cure it by now.
Cells doing things they're not supposed to do can cause everything, from heart attacks to organ failure to growing a fully operational third arm.
When the ambulance showed up at 3:00 I thought it was the ghost busters
who you gonna call? RAD BUSTERS!
One tiny nitpick. When describing “right” and “left” medically it is from the patient’s point of view. Patient “right” you would look to the left. You described “right side” but your graphic has the glass etc on the patient left. The photos show it is indeed mainly right side injuries. Still an excellent video. Thanks for posting it!
“Covering Harold’s right side with glass”
*draws marking on left side*
Love your videos! I'm nit-picking here......... The Hanford site is a big place - the aerial photo you are using is of N-reactor on the Columbia River. The McCluskey room is part of the now demolished Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) located on the plateau more than 10kms to the south. But still a great story!
"Caution: leaded gloves required in this hood"
Well dang, there must be new gang in town.
I have to applaud all the people who helped him and saved his life! Holy smokes that was quite the medical process!
I live in Richland near the Hanford site, very interesting to see these videos especially those involving Hanford, keep up the good work.
Thank you a lot for making these videos, I abselootly love your channel and vids
I like this man, what a bloody legend.
I think you meant “Richland, WA”. I work at Hanford, they had him hospitalized in Kadlec hospital in Richland.
Being from Richland, can confirm. We're the closest city to the Hanford site.
fun fact (or at least a fun story from my mom, who's a Hanford downwinder) a lot of crops in the following years were.. odd to say the least! along with cows being born with more defects than a normal, usually. she claims to this day that the plant is built on gravel deposits nearby a river. im unsure how true this is, really. but she is a geology major, so i trust she has some idea what shes saying.
As usual, nice video.
If possible, could you cover the Seveso accident?
It's kind of too unknown, although it happened in the middle of Europe, and especialy the cleanup and disposal was horendously botched.
Cheers, mate.
Thanks for the suggestion!
@@PlainlyDifficult Yay! :)
Harold, after going through a rigorous medical treatment, plays it off calmly as a work-related accident and that nuclear is alright.
But nuclear IS alright, of course there are incidents, just like any other type of industry, but nuclear is the most clean and enviromentaly friendly
Thank you for these videos! I have been watching them all this week!
It's actually Richland, Washington. Not Richmond. My fiancée is from Richland, where a lot of the town still works at Hanford, so I visit quite often. 😊
Oh my gosh I straight up choked on my food when the sidenote appeared
I live in Washington, and while I'd never heard of this in particular, Hanford is pretty infamous here -- it's the most contaminated nuclear site in the Western Hemisphere, which is not a record any of us are thrilled about.
I don't think there's that much info about it, but you think you could look at the Soviet N-1 rocket?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)
Rushed, under-budget, secrety shenanigans, massive explosions, all in there.
Ahh that's the one when the general made a point and sat under the hidrazyn leaking rocket, isn't it? The most Soviet accident ever
And he still stayed pro nuclear, Harold was really dedicated to the cause.
What are you doing here, Snrub?
If anyone ever gets the opportunity, take the guided tour of the Hanford Site in Washington State. It's probably the most impressive man-made structure I have ever seen.
Not really a nuclear related story, but I find the Brio Superfund site, and the stories that led up to it to be fascinating, would love to see you cover it someday.
It's a toxic waste dump in a nearby city from where I live here in Texas, near Friendswood. Neighborhood was built very close to where this aging plant was, and it shut down shortly after people began settling into the neighborhood. People discovered lots of health issues, babies born with defects, and found parts of the land near the baseball field and neighborhood that appeared to have tar and toxic chemicals leaking out of it. Pretty crazy, the land is still closed off to this day decades later
Remember reading about this in Readers Digests as a kid back in the 1980s. Thanks for the vid!
Love your videos! You should do a video on the chalk river Nuclear accidents!
Thank you and thanks for the suggestion!
Plainly Difficult thanks for responding, made my day 😃
As a washington resident I know Hanford very well. There are so many stories regarding that place.
So crazy cause this story is about my hometown Richland Wa. Was just there last week doing some road work for them
All the stories I hear out there are just disastrous as the next roads that lead to nowhere but are entrances for underground burial sites and just the amount of radiation spilling into the Columbia River from underground. You have to look that up
6:39 *CAUTION: Leaded gloves are required in this hood*
_Warren G.'s Regulate begins to play_
From many of your videos I can tell you really like the classical music station in Fallout 4.
Americium-241 is used in Smoke Detectors.
Typically a smoke detector contains 2μg of Am-241.
So the 100g of Am-241 Harold was dealing with, is enough to make 50 million smoke detectors
Thanks for that little bit of extra context. When he said $1500 per gram, I was thinking that sounded wildly expensive for a material used in something so cheap and disposable.
Awesome! Thanks for sharing!
Another harrowing nuclear disaster story to brighten up my day, another good video from mr difficult
5:14 Missing map!
They transported Harold to Kadlec hospital in Richland, Washington. As a Nuclear Chemical Operator for over 28 years I have heard the story of Harold's accident many times over the years, the man that famously survived seeing the "Blue Flash"... something you NEVER want to experience!
I have heard of people who have high exposure to radiation and lived while others died. It would be interesting to know why some people are more sensitive than others.
Factors include type of radiation , body weight ( ie the fatter you are the better in terms of survival ) the areas which were contaminated . The total area contaminated , the amount of contamination . The total time of exposure . Also if you have any exposed wounds those are much more susceptible to absorbing radiation than intact skin .
Also the type and level of treatment has a massive impact
Can you make a video on the "Nuclear Boy Scout"? Pretty fascinating story
Its more a story of media hype and moral panic. The stuff he was doing wasn't that unusual. He was just sloppy about it.
He was an idiot and a hack who never did anything other than create a pile of nuclear waste
The media wanted to make him out to be a hero though, and to piss on the government
Whixh headline would you buy, "local idiot attempts dangerous jerry rigged reactor, stopped by authorities" or "poor young interprising scientist efforts stamped out by authoritarian officials"?
@@whtwolf100 and there it is again. The same comment. Just stop.
A video that didn’t end in the death of a person due to the exposure to radioactive material, that’s definitely rare!
Recent subscriber after finding your channel last week and I wanted to let you know how much I enjoy the channel. But I'm afraid I might end up on a Homeland Security watch list.
😂😂
Awesome videos mate! 👍
When you're too British to say "Americium"
But it's not the pure element; it's an isotope
@@oriolesfan61 yeah. Americium 241. It is still Americium.
@@REDxBULLxBEASTx "What the bloody 'ell is "Americium"? You mean Yankium m8?"
@@Wafflepudding You mean mate, m8!
@@Wafflepudding lol good one. Green sand glass left in the original bomb tests here (Nevada, USA) is where we first found Americium. It's where we first found many isotopes and elements we didn't have before.
It's Richland, WA not Richmond. I live right across the river from Richland and have worked at the Hanford site.
Dang he was still pro nuclear after all that? What a G.
I'm going to guess that a strike shutting the place down right before this qualifies as "foreshadowing..." seems like he wasn't surprised and filed himself under all the other US workers injured at plants with inadequate safety.
love these vids guy!!!!
It's rather telling that mid-century American science fantasy has people gain superpowers from being exposed to radiation and become heroes, while in Japanese science fantasy of the same period, radiation births city-destroying kaiju.
I was curious if you had done this one, kind of well known in the Tri-cities.
Love your vids man. Everyone is always talking how clean nuclear is but no one realizes how toxic it actually is to all living things. Very informative and fun to watch too.
SketchyScratch You should check out Illinois EnergyProf.
I think the dangers of radiation are pretty well known by everybody lmao. Still cleaner than coal/gas alternatives and more efficient than renewable alternatives. Nobody is suggestting that spent nuclear fuel is safe to play with
Very interesting video thanks
Another quality video, thank you :)
I worked in IT for a Hanford contractor from 2006-2008 - I wasn’t directly involved with any radiological “stuff”, but I did work on the computers used to maintain the dosimetry for Rad techs who were cleaning up the “cribs” (unlined disposal trenches) - actual reactor parts, including fuel rods had been “flushed out” from one of the “K” reactors at one point. Harold McKlusky’s story is legendary, but far from the only one.
Also, it’s Richland, not “Richmond”.
5:13 Media Offline
Yeah what was up with that?
@@XANApwns He churns these videos out for money and doesn't care about the quality.
@@XANApwns He churns these videos out for money and doesn't care about quality.
Oscar Muffin Or you know, he actually wants to make a living and not give some dickhead map company all the money from a video for three seconds of usage.
That's a REAL tough guy!
Was he wearing proper PPE when the explosion occurred?
I believe he was wearing the best recommended PPE of the era.
@@ElectroNeutrino which would be a fire resistant over alls, saftey boots, gloves, helmet and safety glasses. Am I correct?
@@a.b.8606 And the respirator torn off in the explosion.
Nothing stated a Reflective Belt. RIP.
16k a year in the 70s? That was actually pretty good,as houses in expensive areas were 20k. Clearly not worth his tragic experience, but just for perspective.
I was a child in the 70$, but I don't think $20,000ish would have been an expensive house most places in the US, and if I recall correctly, there were many in the trades making close to twice that and entry level teachers made about half that. So if I had to guess, I'd put that job at about $60,000 in 2020.
Funny thing, most of the people make around 75k or so a year now. It’s pretty good to work there minus the health problems.
Also still a big oof that he endured that.
@@themachinefree7585 I was just checking online and in today's, i.e. 2020, money, 16k in 1974 is the equivalent of making $75k. LOL
@@deanjo57790 oh, lol
I was wondering about this, thanks for the context. If he made 16k a year in 2020 for that kind of job I would’ve been really mad lol
He was sustained by the warm glow of Atom!
I think it's worth noting that it's primarily American comics that have the "radiation gives you superpowers" narrative. Take a Japanese story, and radiation turns you into a monster. Obviously, because of the different ends of the A-bomb these cultures have been, their stories/comics present different narratives. I'm only 17 seconds in so if it gets mentioned later I'm sorry for the unnecessary comment
Can you do one on HISASHI OUCHI that was exposed to an extreme amount of radiation. The doctors kept him alive (against his wishes) to see what would happen to him.
I believe it was actually his family who wanted him alive
I love the sign in the thumbnail "Leaded gloves are required in this hood". Looks like a sign I would see on the way into the bad part of town
crazy how they got pictures of all of this!
Good job! (The amount of Americium 241 contained in a smoke detector is about 0.29 of a microgram.)
I wonder if the mutant ghoul "Harold" from Fallout 1 and 2 is a reference to this guy.
Almost definitely!
Am 241 is an Alpha emitter. It can’t penetrate the skin. Why did they seal off the room and only re-enter it decades later with ‘heavy protective suits’? There must have been other isotopes in there too?
They were extracting Am-241, there's no telling what they were extracting it from
I really enjoyed this video keep the videos coming anything industrial accident.
At 2:51 MBq is an appropriate unit of measure for Americium 241, but not Nitric Acid.
must be so cool to be the first to enter a room that was sealed shut 3 decades ago
"Yo bro need a hand?"
"Yes Please!"
"Let's get some of that shit off of your face"
Exactly how it happened
Cheers Harold.
$16,000 in '76 is about $72,000 today, no wonder he agreed, it was one of the best paying jobs plus had a great pension and insurance benefits in the area.
Harold was quite the trooper.
I wonder how many smoke alarm bits of Am-241 would be needed to make 1 gram.
3.4 million smoke alarms, if you mean the household kind of smoke alarm. Those usually have 1 microcurie per alarm, so 1 million alarms is 1 curie, and Am-241 has specific activity of 3.4 curie for 1 gram.
Hay hay I was pretty good at my guess on the preview before hand saying the hansford anericium reprocessing plant incident.
It's amazing that he survived as long as he did
A man who would light up the room, the room being the detection suite complete with warning lamps.
It's cool seeing so many people in the comment section sharing their own experiences with Hanford, hello fellow Washingtonians!
Seems odd that the emergency decontamination facility would be so far away?
He was a very nice man. I met him after his accident.
Wtf I just had that american name "McCluskey" in my head the last few days
It is an Irish name though.
Had you watched any old Burt Reynolds movies recently?
At first I was thinking that was the name of Lloyd Bridges' character in "Airplane!" - but no, that was McCroskey.
The head of "Unite" union in the UK is named McCluskey. He's in the news moderately frequently.