ARLINGTON, Texas -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Thursday attributed the agonizing death of an Oklahoma radiographer to a massive radiation burn, apparently the first death of its type since atomic bomb testing of the 1940s.
The NRC report said Douglas Crofut, 38, an unemployed oilfield worker who specialized in X-raying pipeline welds, died of exposure to either Iridium 192 or Cobalt 60 -- both highly radioactive elements.
The NRC said the radiation source was unknown, but acknowledged it could have come from a stolen piece of radiography equipment that contained a radioactive element.
Crofut, a heavy drinker who was deeply in debt, claimed to not know how he was exposed.
Pipeline workers in the field use a portable X-ray-type machine to examine welds. Those machines contain half-inch, pencil-width radioactive elements of either Iridium or Cobalt that produce gamma rays. The machine shoots those rays through the weld, much like X-rays go through the human body, to give workers a picture of the weld to determine whether it meets standards.
Crofut, of Henryetta, Okla., died Monday at a Tulsa hospital from burns on his chest and arms he developed in January.
If he died from explosure to the radiographic element, his death would be the first of its kind since the Manhattan Project during World War II when the United States developed the atomic bomb.
'There have been some very serious exposures and some serious injuries, but no fatalities' from radiographic exposure in the United States, said Clyde Wisner, an NRC spokesman.
Another NRC official said some deaths 'were associated with the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, N.M.'
Crofut had been undergoing treatment for the burn on his chest and forearm for six months.
'Cells were degenerating 'before our very eyes,'' doctors said in the NRC report. 'Three neighbors described (him) as an alcoholic who could not keep a job with a reputation as a loner.
'One neighbor commented that (he) was observed trying to set fire to himself by dousing gasoline over his body with a rag and then making an unsuccessful attempt to ignite himself with a match.'
It also said he had a history of 16 arrests, mostly on intoxication charges, and was once involved in a jail break attempt.
The NRC report said a radiography machine was stolen in December 1980 from Bill Miller Inc., in Henryetta, Okla., which specializes in examining pipeline welds. The device mysteriously reappeared on Jan. 5, 1981 and Crofut was admitted to a hospital 15 days later suffering from 'extensive localized radiation burns.'
In 1979 Crofut had been fired for drunkeness from a different company that used the same kind of equipment to examine welds.
Regional spokesman Clyde Wisner said the source of Crofut's exposure was never 'conclusively determined,' therefore the death could not officially be attributed to radiography.
Crofut's attorney, Richard Gibbons, said the radiation burns were grotesque and painful.
'The area that I looked at was the left side of his chest and it was the most of the left side from his belt line up above his breast. The meat was just completely eaten out and gone for a depth of at least 2 inches,' Gibbons said.
Gibbons said the radiation burns kept growing, 'eating away until it got to a vital organ -- probably his heart. The man was in such obvious pain.'
