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Atomic worker profile
Cancer killed Piketon worker who helped set safety rules
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
LUCASVILLE — The irony is not lost on Susan Crawford.
Her husband literally helped to write the book on safety practices at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. If those practices had been in place during Jack Crawford's 43 years at the atomic plant, his widow believes he wouldn't have gotten the cancer that killed him.
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But for many years, safety rules at the uranium enrichment plant in Piketon were either nonexistent or not enforced, according to government investigators.
Like other plant employees bound to a code of secrecy, Jack Crawford never talked about exposure to chemicals or radiation.
"I don't think anybody really believed that people got sick out there," said Susan Crawford, 64, of Lucasville. "If you worked at the A-plant you had it made and that's where everybody wanted to work."
Jack Crawford died of colon cancer in 2001 at age 72. A chemical engineer who started work at the plant in 1953, he had survived two earlier bouts of colon cancer, the first at age 57, but the third time proved fatal.
Colorectal cancer is among the most common forms afflicting Americans. Diet and genetics often are factors, but it can be caused by radiation exposure, and it is among 22 cancers specified in a federal compensation program for atomic workers.
"If you asked Jack he would've sworn that (workplace exposure) didn't cause it. I mean he was a staunch supporter of the plant," Susan Crawford said.
But she thinks his cancer was work-related. "He was there when they threw the first switch."
Just before he died, Jack Crawford told his wife to file a claim for federal compensation. The claim was quickly approved.
The first year after his death the sadness was nearly unbearable, Susan Crawford said.
"I wish I had 10 more minutes, just 10 more minutes," she said.
Susan Crawford, who also worked at the plant, said she was smitten when she first saw Jack.
Today she smiles at his memory and still savors the short time they had together — both were widowed when they married in 1994.
She remembers his voice and how it made her feel when he called on the phone.
"Jack was one of the kindest, sweet, sweet men," she said.
"If I wanted to be bitter I could be, but I have so much to be thankful for. The years with Jack I'll never trade. I would've liked to have had him much longer."
