Atomic Man physician to lecture

RICHLAND – The doctor who treated the “Atomic Man” following a Hanford chemical accident in 1976 will speak April 24 at WSU Tri-Cities.

Dr. Bryce Breitenstein was the occupational medicine physician for the Hanford Environmental Health Foundation from 1974 to 1989. He led the team that provided care for Mr. Harold McCluskey a 64-year-old Hanford chemical operations technician who suffered a serious accident in August 1976.

Dr. Breitenstein will deliver the Herbert M. Parker Foundation spring lecture at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, April 24, on the WSU Tri-Cities campus. The event is in the Consolidated Information Center, Room 120, at 2770 University Drive, Richland. Admission is free and open to the public.
 
McCluskey is believed to have survived the biggest dose of radiation received by a human. His treatment for exposure to the radionuclide American-241 included spending five months in a steel-and-concrete isolation tank at the Hanford Emergency Decontamination Facility in Richland. He returned to his Prosser home in January 1977 but did not return to work. He lived until August 1987.
 
Dr. Breitenstein now is the medical director at the Concentra Occupational Medical Center in Placentia, Calif. He was the first recipient of the Herbert M. Parker Award in 1982, awarded by the Columbia Chapter of the Health Physics Society. He has authored several articles on the medical aspects of ionizing radiation.

The Herbert M. Parker Foundation for education in the radiological sciences was created in 1987. It was incorporated into the WSU Foundation in 1997 as an endowment. For more information, visit www.tricity.wsu.edu/parker.

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