Death of Douglas Crofut

On January 22, 1981, Crofut was brought to a hospital in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, by his sister, who noticed that he was suffering from radiation burns and external bleeding from his left arm and torso. Crofut's sister reported that the burns were of such severity that his left nipple had been burnt away. Doctors determined that Crofut had suffered a massive exposure to an unknown source of radiation. In late January, Crofut was transferred to another hospital (St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa) due to his condition as a result of severe radiation burns.

Crofut continued to undergo treatment for the burns to his chest and left arm in the months following his initial injury. On June 1, 1981, he was placed into intensive care due to an ongoing infection, which resulted in his death.

Prior to injury, Douglas Crofut was a 38-year-old unemployed industrial radiographer who specialized in X-raying pipeline welds. He was reported to have last worked with sources of radiation in October 1980, when he was employed with a Houston-based pipeline inspection firm. Some of Crofut's neighbors described him as a "loner".

NRC tests performed on Crofut indicated that he had been exposed to gamma rays, either from iridium-192 or cobalt-60. The estimated dosage was believed to be 356 rads or 405 rads, respectively (at around 400 rads, roughly 50% people exposed will die). The NRC believed that Crofut's injuries were consistent with radiation exposure occurring between December 15, 1980, and January 10, 1981.

One particularly unusual circumstance concerned the difficulty in determining the radioactive source which had caused Crofut's injuries. The NRC discovered that on December 30, 1980, an industrial radiographic device (along with its protective container) had been reported stolen from a locked truck belonging to a pipe-line inspection company. This incident occurred at the residence of a second radiographer, only a half-mile away from Crofut's home in Henryetta, Oklahoma. The stolen source contained a capsule of iridium-192, such as that suspected of causing injury to Crofut. The NRC believed the device was an unlikely item to have been intentionally stolen, citing that there was no known personal use for such a device, nor was there a market to sell it to without raising suspicions.

The NRC further suggested a possible self-harm theory after looking into Crofut's personal and professional background. One past example which was cited occurred on December 13, 1979, when Crofut was fired from Tulsa Gamma Ray Inc. (now TGR Industrial Services) for alcohol intoxication. Crofut was reported to have been found intoxicated, kneeling over a radiation-emitting device and exposing himself to hazardous rays. However, this incident was reported to have left Crofut with no documented injuries. On another occasion, a neighbor claimed that Crofut had been witnessed dousing gasoline over his body with a rag and then making an unsuccessful attempt to ignite himself with a match. Additionally, NRC officials believed Crofut to be an alcoholic who was deeply in debt and had difficulty keeping a job. He was reported to have a record of sixteen arrests between 1974 and 1980, with most being liquor law violations, such as public intoxication.

Douglas Harris Crofut (November 6, 1942 – June 1st, 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.