TRANSCRIPT OF BERGSTROM AFB, INTERVIEW OF BETTY CASH,
VICKIE & COLBY LANDRUM
August 1981, Part 5
BC: You want to see some pictures?
CJC: Well if you have 'em, we'd like to see 'em. If you would... remember, some of these are documents we'll not be able to keep, we would, you know, request that you would keep them, but if you would... if there's any of them we could copy for example with a Xerox copier machine...
BC: There's the first day after it happened.
CJC:I'm looking at a photograph that indicates that Ms. Cash had some significant hair loss along the side of her... cranium above her right ear and extended back over the crown of her head ... OK.
BC:This is a picture of the place where it happened.
CJC: OK, now how long after the incident did you take these photographs? I know that... the pictures of yourself... the pictures were taken the following day?
BC:(Talking over CJC) I didn't take them... I did not take them. No, they were made later, but there were some made and those were made off them.... I had some other pictures... but I must have left them in my other purse. Plus I was completely blistered, in fact I have a scar over my eye where one of the blisters... every time they would come up, they would break open and just... run like water... just sticky water, there was no pus or anything, you know. But they... in fact, I stayed in the hospital for a month, maybe a little bit longer... at Parkway Hospital in Houston.
CJC: OK, now is there ah... anything else that you'd like to tell us regarding it?
BC:Yes. I had... I still have diarrhea, I still have upset stomach, I still feel weak, I'm tired, I don't have any energy like I used to have, I have severe headaches... and I have... I'll bet I could count on my hand how many headaches I'd ever had in my lifetime, until this happened. But... it's unreal how my head hurts. My right ear is bothering me right now. Its... the beeping sound... the shrill beeping sound the object was making... it was just like it was... was deafening. That's how shrill it was.
CJC: Was it like that of a aircraft, you know like around a jet airliner? Have you ever flown on a commercial airliner?
BC: Oh yes... sure I have.
CJC: Was it louder or similar to that? Have you ever anything that was similar to it, that you can compare it to?
BC: No, no. That's exactly the reason I'm going and listen to some sounds.
CJC: Beg pardon?
BC: That's the reason I'm going to listen to some sounds.
CJC: OK. Is there anything you can tell us about what you saw or what happened to you?
BC:Well, the only thing I know that I was sick within 30 minutes after the time it happened, and burning up, I was just like I had been blistered all over, like I had been laying on a beach, and it happened within 30 minutes after... this incident. I were feeling fine before, then all this took place. The next morning I was so sick I couldn't... and craving water, I was dying of thirst, or I thought I was. I felt like I was so dehydrated. I couldn't even get out of bed to get myself a glass of water.
CJC: Did you have any special sensation in your mouth?
BC:Nothing but extremely dryness...
CJC: Have you uh... tried... OK
BC:(breaking in) ... my lips were swollen, my ears were swollen about three times... well in fact my entire body... my family didn't recognize me. When they came to the hospital, they told them what room I was in. They said had they not known for sure that it was me, they wouldn't have known me.
CJC: Prior to this occasion on the 29th of December, 1980, had you ever been hospitalized or treated for any uh... ailments or problems?
BC: Sure, I had heart surgery.
CJC: OK, and when and where was that?
BC: In Birmingham Alabama in Nineteen ... Seventy Six
CJC: OK, any other treatments?
BC: Nothing other than just a hysterectomy... when I was 29.
CJC When you was 29. Now have you been you ever been treated for any ah... medical condition that would have required you to have be exposed to any radioactive materials?
BC: No.
CJC: Is there anything else that you can pass on to us?
(pause)
BC: The doctors at Parkway Hospital.
CJC: Do... did you have a physician by name that you could refer to?
BC: I surely do now.
CJC: OK, What's his name?
BC: Dr. Shoney.
CJC: Dr. Shoney? Would you spell that please?
BC: S-H-O-N-E-Y
CJC: OK, does he have practice there in Parkway...or in Parkway... is Parkway in...
BC: Houston.
CJC: ...wherever it is...
BC: It's in Houston.
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