Carter Roy
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
They test every tissue sample, every bone fragment.
All of it, every piece of her is radioactive.
Her body contains 500 times the amount of radium that would later be set as a safe limit.
No syphilis, just radium.
The company's lie is exposed.
Her sisters finally have proof.
Meanwhile, Raymond Barry has found a way to get around the statute of limitations.
He argues that the two-year timer starts when the girls were diagnosed with radium poisoning, not when they left the company.
Remember, many of the girls were thought to have syphilis or other diseases.
It wasn't until Edwin Lehman, the chief scientist, died that doctors even considered the possibility of radium poisoning.
Some of the girls didn't get their formal diagnosis until May 1927.
When Raymond Berry makes his argument, it's June 1927, well under the statute of limitations.
So the case is allowed to go forward.
In January 1928, the Radium Girls make their first court appearance.
Two of the women are bedridden.
None of them can raise their arms to take the oath.
Grace Fryer is unable to walk and has lost all her teeth.
The press goes wild.
Newspapers across the country cover the case.
They dub the women the Radium Girls and the Living Dead.