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N0KFQ > TODAY 13.11.11 23:09l 60 Lines 2864 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 13978_KB0WSA
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Subj: Today in History - Nov 13
Path: IZ3LSV<IW0QNL<VE2PKT<PI8APE<N9PMO<JE7YGF<VE3UIL<N0KFQ<KB0WSA
Sent: 111113/2042Z 13978@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.0.4
Nov 13, 1974:
Karen Silkwood dies in mysterious one-car crash
On this day in 1974, 28-year-old Karen Silkwood is killed in a
car accident near Crescent, Oklahoma, north of Oklahoma City.
Silkwood worked as a technician at a plutonium plant operated by
the Kerr-McGee Corporation, and she had been critical of the
plant's health and safety procedures. In September, she had
complained to the Atomic Energy Commission about unsafe
conditions at the plant (a week before her death, plant monitors
had found that she was contaminated with radioactivity herself),
and the night she died, she was on her way to a meeting with a
union representative and a reporter for The New York Times,
reportedly with a folder full of documents that proved that
Kerr-McGee was acting negligently when it came to worker safety
at the plant. However, no such folder was found in the wreckage
of her car, lending credence to the theory that someone had
forced her off the road to prevent her from telling what she
knew.
On the night of November 5, Silkwood was polishing plutonium
pellets that would be used to make fuel rods for a "breeder
reactor" nuclear-power plant. At about 6:30 P.M., an alpha
detector mounted on her glove box (the piece of equipment that
was supposed to protect her from exposure to radioactive
materials) went off: According to the machine, her right arm was
covered in plutonium. Further tests revealed that the plutonium
had come from the inside of her gloves_that is, the part of her
gloves that was only in contact with her hands, not the pellets.
Plant doctors monitored her for the next few days, and what they
found was quite unusual: Silkwood's urine and feces samples were
heavily contaminated with radioactivity, as was the apartment she
shared with another plant worker, but no one could say why or how
that "alpha activity" had gotten there. (In fact, measurements
after her death indicated that Silkwood had ingested the
plutonium somehow; again, no one could say how or why.)
After work on November 13, Silkwood went to a union meeting
before heading home in her white Honda. Soon, police were
summoned to the scene of an accident along Oklahoma's State
Highway 74: Silkwood had somehow crashed into a concrete culvert.
She was dead by the time help arrived. An autopsy revealed that
she had taken a large dose of Quaaludes before she died, which
would likely have made her doze off at the wheel; however, an
accident investigator found skid marks and a suspicious dent in
the Honda's rear bumper, indicating that a second car had forced
Silkwood off the road.
Silkwood's father sued Kerr-McGee, and the company eventually
settled for $1.3 million, minus legal fees. Kerr-McGee closed its
Crescent plant in 1979
73, K.O. n0kfq
Another old retired guy
E-mail: n0kfq@winlink.org
N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
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