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Article: The fallout of the Los Alamos fire.(Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services)
- Article from:
- Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
- Article date:
- May 25, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The smoke cloud streaming through northern New Mexico last weekend sent me to the hospital with a severe asthma attack. I almost died.
As I lay on a gurney, the doctors inserted an IV tube into my arm and a facemask sprayed oxygen and Albuteral into my airways. My thoughts turned to my family's intricate relationship with Los Alamos, the nation's number-one nuclear-weapons lab.
My father had visited Los Alamos as a kid when the town didn't officially exist: it was known simply as Post Office Box 1663. His aunt was married to a technician who worked on the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb.
Throughout my own childhood, we made ...