And the nuclear power lobbies like to present themselves as champions of the environment. And oil companies claim that they are among the most environmentally respectful corporations out there, that they are the ones that make the most efforts or stuff along those lines.
As others have said, the showmakers have been pretty transparent as to what they deliberately changed for dramatic reasons, both in interviews, their own podcasts and the epilogue of the series, including the helicopter crash incident. And while they have been accused of perpetrating some unverified myths like the "bridge of death"'s deaths, they've also been careful not to weigh in on the veracity of these claims and outright debunked others like the bubbler divers. And, most importantly they have been extremely careful to
avoid making an anti-nuclear power message. On the contrary, their message seem to be more that "western nuclear power is pretty good since we are not as corrupt and morally bankrupt as the Soviet Union was" (at least with regards to nuclear power plants).
So yeah, some of the stuff in the series is factually incorrect and was obviously tweaked for increased drama, and there are a few things here and there that weren't as thoroughly researched as the rest. But honestly, given the usual quality and often laughable accuracy of historical dramas, they've done a pretty damn good job overall.
If there was enough radiation to structurally affect the chopper 6 months after the incident, I'm thinking perhaps anyone getting anywhere near it would be essentially under a death sentence?
YES.
I mean, it's not as if they included a whole subplot regarding the use of robots, and how the radiation was affecting them, and how human couldn't safely spend more than a couple minutes on the roof with protection and should absolutely not look down into the core...
Sarcasm aside, I don't think we know for sure the exact circumstances of the IRL crash (and I'm not an expert on helicopter crashes), but I seem to recall reading that radiation was indeed hard on the helicopters' avionics over time, so it doesn't seem too far-fetched to claim that radiation damage played a role in that crash.