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WHEELERSBURG — Larry Knapp was in the seat of a crane, removing old machinery from the atomic plant at Piketon. Somebody yelled, "Take it up," and Knapp's crane pulled a giant uranium enrichment compressor from its moorings.

One moment, he saw his co-workers 40 feet below; the next, nothing but a great yellow cloud — rising directly at him. Knapp panicked: He was caught in a radioactive release.

Peeling off his hat, he put on a respirator and moved the crane toward the exit 500 feet away. "I rode that thing for what felt like an eternity."

Knapp, now 59, of Wheelersburg quit his job at Piketon's Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant a few months after the 1976 incident. But he believes his exposures to radiation there gave him a rare skin disorder that's cursed him for 25 years.

In 1981, four years after he left the plant, Knapp started developing lesions on his face and body.

He has had more than 100 skin grafts since then to remove 320 lesions. Ghastly presurgical snapshots depict Knapp with gaping sores and with his eyes swollen shut.

"It was painful physically, it was painful mentally," he said.

Since 2001, the federal government has paid more than $200 million to Piketon workers or their survivors through a program that compensates workers sickened by workplace exposures. But thousands of U.S. atomic workers, including Knapp, have been turned down for compensation and medical benefits because they can't prove their illnesses are work-related.

Knapp wasn't diagnosed until 1999. Granuloma faciale is a non-malignant condition that mostly strikes middle-aged, white men such as Knapp. Nobody knows what causes it, but radiation exposure may be a factor, according to a 1999 article published by the American Academy of Dermatology.

Knapp said he was often exposed to radioactivity during his time at the plant from 1975-77.

Records show he was examined at the plant clinic in August 1976 for reddening of the skin across much of his body.

Knapp's job involved replacement, or "changeout," of 1950s equipment that had been used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and submarines.

A 2000 Energy Department investigation showed the changeout had a "mixed performance with regard to radiological safety." Problems included workers transporting "grossly contaminated open components without proper covering or decontamination."

In the crane incident, Knapp was removing equipment that produced high-enriched uranium. It contained hidden radioactive residue that whooshed out in the yellow cloud, he said.

A Geiger counter registered a high radiation reading from Knapp's clothing. He said he immediately tried to shower the radiation away.

"I stripped down — wham — just like Cher in that movie 'Silkwood,' " Knapp said. "Scrub, scrub, scrub." But the Geiger counter still went off, so he "went back in, (showered) again, and eventually I felt that I got as clean as I could get."

Knapp said several other workers in the room also were exposed. He said he filed an internal report but has never gotten a copy of it. Knapp does have plant records showing that on April 2, 1977, a similar accident exposed 19 workers to radioactive technetium levels 5.7 times the allowable limit.

Knapp said he still gets lesions, but he's uninsurable and needs state workers' compensation medical benefits.

A hearing officer approved him for workers' comp in 2004, but his case was overturned after a physician said the disorder wasn't work-related. Knapp is appealing in court.

Despite his problems, he said he's more fortunate than many of his former Piketon co-workers.

"I'm just one of hundreds of stories out there," Knapp said. "I've been lucky enough to live long enough to tell mine."

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