Debrah Magee, 7th/8th grade Mathematics

“I worked at Brookhaven National Laboratory my senior year of college when I came into [contact with] radiation. I was not infected, but I had to go to the emergency unit. A bottle of americium 127 exploded on another student and he panicked. When he went out the door, he touched everything in the building. God was with me because when I first came into the building, for some reason, that day someone was holding the door for me. So I was sitting there doing research on radioactive materials, and these guys in hazmat suits came in. I thought, I’m not going to say anything. Maybe it’s a project? They had the Geiger Counter and when they swept it over me, I said, “That’s enough. Tell me what is happening.” He told me that some radioactive material spilled and they were checking everyone. He checked me and nothing happened, so he said, “Go wash your hands.” I said okay because they wanted to make sure nothing was on it. I washed my hands and came back and the Geiger Counter went off the scale. At some point, the other student washed his hands, so I got it from the soap. They rushed me over to this hospital, and I went into this special room. The bars come down as if you are in prison. I didn’t really panic because I was in shock. As it turned out, I was okay. I had every type of scientist figuring out what was going on. They took the first layer of my skin off of my hands because that is where I had it. [One of the scientist] said ‘She does not have it. I think I know why.’ He looked at me. ‘It’s because you are black.’ I was like ‘What does me being black have to do with this?’ He said ‘No, no, no, it’s because you have a lot of oil in your skin and because we got here so quick, it never got to absorb into [your] skin.’ They kept track of me for about 15 years to make sure I had no symptoms. I have had no symptoms, so I have to assume I am okay.”