The perils of Pantex: Hundreds of workers sickened at Texas nuclear weapons plant
AMARILLO -- Bob Ruzich, a 31-year worker at the nuclear assembly plant here, rarely got sick. He had to cash out his sick hours every year because he was so healthy.
But in a matter of months, the Pantex Plant worker became so fragile that he had to be rushed by helicopter to the hospital. Ruzichs 18-year-old son watched from the front yard of their Panhandle home as his fathers motionless body was lifted into the air, said his wife, Barbara Ruzich.
You do what you have to do, Barbara Ruzich said. You dont sit back and cry.
Years ago, it was popular for plant workers to tell spouses and other loved ones that they made soap at the nuclear weapons assembly facility on a 16,000-acre parcel. But Pantex now conjures up a different image, as hundreds have suddenly fallen ill or died at the plant, a vital component in the nations nuclear weapons program since the 1950s.
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Cross-posted in the Texas Group.