The 28-year-old Karen is the self-assured ‘ordinary’ worker and union activist at the Kerr-McGee nuclear processing plant in Cimarron, Oklahoma, who lives with her co-worker boyfriend Drew (Kurt Russell) and lesbian friend Dolly (Cher). The hard working and hard drinking tough cookie has a humdrum job but one perilous to her health because of radiation contamination from plutonium. When X-ray’s show Karen has been contaminated, she moves to get proof over management’s neglect regarding safety measures at the plant to present to her union. Even when her personal life comes unglued over the breakup with Drew, who is tired of her activism, Karen continues her spying. The film clearly implies that Karen was most likely silenced for being a whistle-blower, though some critics maintain her death was accidental and that she was an alcoholic and under the influence of tranquilizers when behind the wheel. Later, the nuclear company paid her family a large settlement for the contamination when they filed a civil-law suit and the case was settled out of court.