Radiation Killed Douglas Crofut. No One Knows Why.

his cells were degenerating before our very eyes so far the situation defies explanation he was always kind of a loner on june 1st 1981 douglas crowfoot died in intensive care by then everyone knew that a lethal dose of radiation had killed him but no one knew why at the moment douglas died he became the only person in united states history to succumb to an unknown source of radioactive decay after months of investigation there was only one person that knew what really happened to mr crowfoot what it was that fatally irradiated him and they never said a word because that person was crow foot himself was it a freak accident was it negligence or was this the first case of a suspected suicide by radiation this is the true story of the death of douglas crowfoot before he made history at age 38 the last normal thing that douglas crowfoot did was work as an industrial radiographer inspecting oil and natural gas pipelines for irregularities there are 2.6 million miles of oil and gas pipes in the united states a number that rivals the total mileage of all the u.s roadways so unsurprisingly pipeline leaks and ruptures inevitably occur costing time money and occasionally lives industrial radiographers are employed to find these leaks before and after they happen and powerful radiation is the only way to do so the thickness of the pipes themselves requires something stronger than x-rays carrying portable machines radiographers use pellets of radioactive elements that produce gamma rays to examine joints and welds much like a medical x-ray it wouldn't be unusual to find the materials that generate these gamma rays on a radiographer's truck like douglas crowfoot would have driven and would have had working knowledge of that is until the october of 1980 when he was fired by a houston pipeline inspection firm near lovington new mexico this wasn't his first time being fired as a radiographer and less than a year later an unemployed crow foot would join an exclusive club one that hadn't added any new members in four decades not since harry dougly and junior and louis slotten died handling a 6.2 kilogram sphere of plutonium on january 22nd 1981 douglas crowfoot was bleeding from his left arm and chest but it wasn't until his visiting sister noticed the blood that he was brought to okmulgee memorial hospital in oklahoma it was then that doctors discovered the burns extensive enough to already have removed his left nipple only a massive exposure of radiation could have done something like this they concluded a few weeks later the burns had gotten bad enough to transfer mr crowfoot to saint francis hospital in tulsa oklahoma over the next six months douglas would be frequently forced to return to a hospital bed the radiation burns were not getting any better skin grafts were considered there were some signs of improvement in the march of that year but his doctors were reportedly unsure of his ultimate fate believing that the dose that must have done this to him was likely lethal whatever it was that irradiated him it was powerful and given his background that could realistically only mean one thing inside of an industrial radiography device is a small unassuming capsule containing pellets of radioactive material to safely get this capsule from the device and into an imaging position inside of a pipeline a corkscrewing wire called a pigtail is attached to the capsule inside of the device's lead or depleted uranium shielding and is then pushed by the pigtail like a drainage snake into position where gamma rays contact radiographic film for an x-ray-like image when used by an experienced operator a radiographic camera is safe and effective they've been in use for decades douglas crowfoot would have gone through this very process many times throughout his career he'd be very familiar with exposing a powerful gamma-ray source as part of his job which is why when the nuclear regulatory commission began investigating his case shortly after his first hospital admission the iridium-192 you'd find in a typical radiography device was the first suspect further bolstering this id was the fact that both crowfoot's sister and ex-wife showed no signs of radiation poisoning whatever happened it happened to douglas alone quickly and in a way that didn't contaminate the surrounding environment though the source was never officially identified something that hasn't happened before or since the nrc knew that gamma rays had hit mr crowfoot and so assuming an iridium or cobalt source they calculated that douglas's left arm and torso had taken between 350 and 400 rads of radiation a dose that would be fatal for half the people exposed to it sometime between december 15th 1980 and january 10th 1981 crowfoot claimed he had no idea how he was exposed but at the same time his flesh was being eaten away as if by some radioactive phantom lingering maliciously like an invisible cancer the nrc discovered that a source of iridium 192 had been stolen from a locked radiography truck less than a mile from crowfoot's home on a date that couldn't fit more perfectly within what the commission had calculated [Music] there are five categories of radioactive sources category five sources like you'd find in handheld spectroscopic devices are unlikely to permanently harm anyone no matter how long they are in close contact at the extreme end of the scale category 1 sources like those used in machines purpose-built to irradiate objects can deliver a lethal dose in a matter of minutes iridium-192 which is itself created via contact with category 1 substances is a category 2 radioactive source and when mishandled it can deliver a fatal dose within hours it's happened before february 20th 1999 yanango peru a local welder finds a small silver capsule in a water pipe he picks it up and places it in his back right pocket it stays there for six hours while he works the back of his right leg is starting to hurt and turn red as if from an insect sting at the same time a radiographer returns to the water pipe to take an image to his dismay he sees that the device is unscrewed and the iridium 192 is gone he starts searching for the source three hours later at 1am the radiographer finds the welder at his home the welder retrieves the capsule in question from the pants he left in his bathroom by hand the radiographer slaps the sliver of silver out of his hands and into the street he then runs and covers the capsule with a rock the capsule is later recovered with a two inch thick iron container within two weeks unstoppable lesions had formed where the capsule had sat in the welder's back pocket and less than a year later his entire leg had to be amputated up to the hip he would need to be in intensive care for more than a year two weeks before douglas crowfoot was hospitalized on january 22 1981 the stolen capsule of iridium-192 that went missing from a truck back in december was found it was sitting safely in its shielded case on the back porch of another radiographer's home and he was mr crowfoot's neighbor douglas was already a tortured man before he was tortured to death by radiation both the official nuclear regulatory report and crowfoot's neighbors described his problems with alcohol his struggle to maintain employment and his extensive criminal record 16 arrests in the last six years leading up to his hospitalization [Music] most of these were liquor law violations and public intoxication one was an attempted jailbreak and in 1979 one year before something irradiated him he was fired from yet another radiography company from intoxication they had found him drunk and alone silently kneeling over an unshielded capsule of iridium-192 i've never seen anything like it in my life said richard gibbons who is mr crowfoot's attorney it would make you sick to your stomach almost six months after he was first hospitalized mr crowfoot's prognosis was not good nrc officials observed that as is the case with the heavily irradiated his bone marrow the source of his blood cells was almost gone the burns on his arm and torso that had started off small had now eaten over two inches deep into his chest like a cancer the irreparable cellular damage was eating away until it got to a vital organ probably his heart reported gibbons the man was in such obvious pain douglas harris crowfoot died on june 1st 1981 shortly after being admitted to intensive care at hillcrest medical center in tulsa oklahoma for an ongoing infection it was the first time in nearly a half century since the early days of nuclear experimentation that someone had died like he did with crowfoot's death died any knowledge of what actually happened to him until his last breath he claimed that he had no idea how he got his burns and that he had nothing to do with a stolen capsule of iridium but history wouldn't end up believing him douglas crowfoot was buried without anyone knowing what actually happened to him his lawyer suggested it could have been an accidental exposure at his previous place of employment but the media latched on to a different explanation entirely crowfoot was thought to have exposed himself to lethal gamma rays deliberately the evidence certainly wasn't in his favor the nuclear regulatory commission calculated that whatever irradiated douglas it happened between december 15th and january 10th on december 30th someone had stolen a capsule of iridium-192 from a radiography device in a locked truck belonging to bill miller incorporated in henrietta oklahoma which like crowfoot at one point specialized in examining pipeline welds the truck was parked less than half a mile from crowfoot's home on january 5th the capsule was found safely back in its shielded container on the back porch of a third radiographer also in mr crowfoot's neighborhood the burns were discovered 15 days later investigators of the theft found no actual connection to any of the radiographers and closed the case with no conclusion describing it as quote weird and one with a lot of quirks in it that so far defy explanation but the nrc knew that mr crowfoot had to have been in contact with gamma rays and powerful sources aren't common mr crowfoot worked with them for years iridium 192 specifically which is one of the two sources the nrc knew it had to be mr crowfoot was irradiated at the exact same time a source went missing less than half a mile from his home from a truck he likely would have recognized from a device he would have known how to operate the source was returned safely in a manner only someone with experience could do at the home of another radiographer who would have known how to handle it crowfoot was a noted drunkard a loner and in massive debt he had been arrested 16 times in the previous six years and fired from his last job less than four months before he showed up at a hospital he appears in history as a man in such obvious pain and so unsurprisingly the commission alleged that douglas crowfoot intentionally placed an iridium 192 capsule in his front shirt pocket left it there for over five minutes and then returned it safely that's all it would take to produce the torture that followed suicide via radiation is a damning claim an action that if true casts a man's whole life in a different glowing light but this wasn't hard for anyone to believe on december 13th 1979 when crowfoot was fired for alcohol intoxication it was because he was found drunk kneeling over an unprotected iridium capsule purposefully irradiating himself for an unknown amount of time and before that one of his neighbors recalled to the commission looking out of their window in horror as they watch crowfoot douse his body with gasoline and try unsuccessfully to ignite himself with a match to this day the death of douglas crow foot is the only fatality in the united states attributable to an unknown source of radiation and the only suspected case of suicide by radiation exposure the nrc investigation into his death and into the theft and subsequent return of the iridium near his home was ultimately closed with no conclusions the evidence however seems fairly one-sided it makes a kind of twisted sense that the radiation eating into douglas crow foot was a reflection of what had always been eating into him mentally or at least seem to be but the fact is we will never know the truth as that light faded with his [Music] until next time [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Kyle Hill

Views: 1,425,637

Keywords: because science, engineering, kyle hill, learning, math, physics, science, stem, the facility, chernobyl, radiation, radiography, douglas crofut, crofut, iridium, iridium 192, louis slotin, harry daghlian

Id: CRw1R0BKQ7M

Length: 15min 47sec (947 seconds)

Published: Sun May 08 2022