Radiation Killed Douglas Crofut | No One Knows Why (1981)
There has only been one recorded death due to an unknown source of radiation. Was it an accident? Was it negligence? Or was it something worse?
1981-07-27 12:00:00 - Kyle Hill
Douglas Harris Crofut (1942 - 1981) was an American radiographer who inspected oil and natural gas pipelines. He died in intensive care as a result of radiation burns and radiation poisoning.
His death was the first of its kind in the United States since the 1940s, when radiation deaths occurred during the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico.
It is the only U.S. death attributable to an unknown source of radiation, and the only known case in the U.S. of a suspected suicide undertaken via radiation exposure.