Karen Silkwood

Personal

Vocation

Notable

Family

American activist who put herself in grave danger when she reported unsafe conditions at the plant where she worked. A technician at Kerr-McGee Corporation's Cimarron plutonium-fuel plant, she became concerned about safety procedures, and began a debate with the union in 1974. In September 1974 she flew to Washington, DC to give places, times, dates and names to back up her accusation of peril to the plant workers. In the following two months, she gathered more evidence of the falsification or quality-control checks on the rods produced. In November 1974, Silkwood herself was exposed to radioactivity on two successive days. She never delivered her evidence nor was it ever found, as her car swerved off Oklahoma state highway 74 and crashed into a concrete culver wall, killing her on 11/13/1974, 7:30 PM. Though the death was ruled an accident, an autopsy revealed Quaaludes in her system, which could have made her sleepy. However there were unanswered questions prompting speculations about foul play. She had carried a file folder of secret documents to her aborted rendezvous with a New York times reporter and a union official but none were found in the car, and there were fresh dents and traces of rubber in the rear bumper and fender. She was survived by her husband, Bill Meadows with whom she had eloped the summer of 1964; three kids. In 1972, she found out that Bill was having an affair with her friend Kathy Adams and she walked out on him and her three babies. Before she left, she asked Kathy to take care of them. A film was made of her drama, starring Meryl Streep. Link to Wikipedia biography