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Posted on 05/25/2026 8:30:59 AM PDT by Red Badger
Spc. Richard Leroy McKinley’s white marble headstone may look like the others in Arlington Cemetery, but his grave serves as a grim reminder of the first fatal nuclear accident in America.
McKinley’s grave is the only radioactive grave in the cemetery. He was laid to rest in a double lead-lined casket and lowered into a 10-foot concrete grave encased in a metal vault with an additional foot of concrete poured atop his casket.
McKinley’s family had to watch the eight-minute veteran’s funeral from 20 feet away.
McKinley was born on December 2, 1933, in Union City, Indiana, but he grew up with his big family in Kenton, Ohio. McKinley enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1951 and served in Korea. He married his hometown sweetheart, Caroline Dick, on June 1, 1956, and they had two children together.
He later enlisted in the United States Army and began serving as an operator at the National Reactor Testing Station in 1961, just outside Idaho Falls, Idaho. Nuclear reactors were built and tested at this site, including an experimental design known as the Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One (SL-1).
On January 3, 1961, operators came to work at the reactor station following a 10-day closure for the holidays. Around 9:00 p.m., the alarm rang out after a steam explosion erupted in the SL-1 reactor, killing Army Spc. John Arthur Byrnes and Navy Seabee Richard Carlton Legg.
When first responders arrived an hour and a half later at 10:35 p.m., they found the two men dead on the ground, as well as McKinley, who had miraculously survived the initial explosion. They also encountered dangerously high levels of radiation and rushed McKinley to the hospital.
McKinley tragically died at just 27 years old shortly after being placed in the ambulance, leaving behind his wife and two children.
McKinley’s grave is now safe to visit; it remains the only radioactive burial plot in the cemetery, and his cemetery file reads with a grim warning.
“Victim of nuclear accident,” the file reads. “Body is contaminated with long-life radioactive isotopes. Under no circumstances will the body be removed from this location without prior approval of the AEC [Atomic Energy Commission] in consultation with this headquarters.”
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For some unknown reason Byrnes yanked a control rod all the way out. They weighed about a hundred pounds. Maybe it was stuck? At any rate the reactor went critical in a millisecond and the whole thing blew sky high. Oops
The SL-1 incident was required reading when I was going through Naval Nuclear Power Training back in 1983.
We should also remember the servicemen who died too young because of insufficient safety protocols for atomic testing.
People didn’t know any better at the time. A poor excuse, but true............
There’s a lot of controversy as to why the control rod was withdrawn in such a manor.
I’m gonna go with plain, old fashioned ignorance............
What about the first responders who placed him in the ambulance and the morticians who placed him in the casket, weren’t they exposed to radiation too?
Secondary exposure probably not as serious............
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core
Using his own unapproved protocol, Slotin did not place any shims. ... Enrico Fermi reportedly told Slotin and others they would be "dead within a year" if they continued performing the test in that manner. Scientists referred to this flirtation with a nuclear chain reaction as "tickling the dragon's tail", based on a remark by physicist Richard Feynman.Spoiler Alert: Slotin surveyed Fermi's warning by four months.
“weren’t they exposed to radiation too?”
Yes, they were exposed to radiation. Mckinley was radioactive, ambulance crew was radiated.
And the innocent civilian bystanders that had no knowledge of what they were doing. Marie Curie is an example.
During her pioneering experiments, the dangers of radiation were largely unknown. Curie routinely carried vials of radioactive isotopes in her pockets and handled them with her bare hands. Because of the radioactive residue on her body, Marie Curie was interred in a lead-lined coffin. In 1995, her remains were relocated and entombed in the Panthéon in Paris, France’s national mausoleum, where she rests alongside other French luminaries. Because these materials have extremely long half-lives, this heavy exposure permanently contaminated her personal belongings. Her laboratory notebooks, recipes, and even her cookbooks remain so radioactive that they are still stored in lead-lined boxes at the French National Library, requiring protective gear to be handled. She was hot in the worst kind of way.
wy69
Spc. Richard Leroy McKinley, Army Spc. John Arthur Byrnes and Navy Seabee Richard Carlton Legg were all killed by steam and radiation.
Shouldn’t the graves of Byrnes and Legg be the same as McKinley’s grave?
“alongside other French luminaries” although in her case, the luminary term is literal. 😁
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/154385419/john_arthur-byrnes
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/67718734/richard_carlton-legg
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