Workplace accidents and illnesses can happen anywhere and at anytime. Some instances are due to faulty equipment, lacking the necessary upkeep by employers. Others are due to repetitive actions made by the worker during their course of employment causing temporary or permanent injuries. Arizona residents may be interested in reading about just some of the dangers that workers were exposed to during the advent of nuclear energy use.

During the Cold War, working in the nuclear field was dangerous. Although hazards at the workplace were known and precautions were made, many workers still became ill from materials handled during the nuclear process.

One man remembers how his father, back in the 1960s, became ill while working at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. He recalls how his father used to come home from work, eat a little bit, throw up and then lay down on the couch. He would then get up and return to work. The man died in 1977 from complications related to a kidney transplant failure at the age of 51.

His work, which eventually caused his failing health, was at a plant that used a lithium-enrichment program to provide materials for hydrogen bomb. The use of mercury, which is what is believed to have caused his kidney failure, is vital to the lithium process.

The plant, Y-12, monitored the air quality at the plant and works shifts were rotated to limit mercury exposure. Individuals who showed signs of illness were closely watched, but some workers became ill despite precautions.

The man's widow received a $125,000 check from the Energy Employees Occupational Illness and Compensation Program in 2005, the government's sick nuclear workers' compensation program.

Though, according to the widow, doctors could see the mercury in her husband's blood, due to secrecy surrounding his work, he would not disclose to medical professionals how he became exposed to mercury. Declassification did not happen until after his death.

Source: Knoxville News Sentinel, "Mercury's health effects on workers, OR public still under scrutiny," Frank Munger, Dec. 20, 2011