One of the most famous single accidents at Hanford occurred on August 30, 1976, when worker Harold Mc- Cluskey was monitoring the extraction of americium-241 from some nuclear waste. Nitric acid reacted with the americium-241 and caused a chemical explosion that sprayed radioactive material in McCluskey's face. Colleagues who came to his rescue were also contaminated. The accident left McCluskey so radioactive he could set Geiger counters clicking from fifty feet away. During his treatment he had to live in a concrete- lined, windowless room in a special Hanford decontamination center. For a time all his urine and feces had to be collected and disposed of as radioactive waste. The local press dubbed him "the Atomic Man." He needed months of skin scrubbing to remove external radiation and took an experimental drug to remove internal contamination. Though the accident left him almost blind, McCluskey managed to...