on september 30th 1999 technicians at
the tokaimura nuclear plant in japan
accidentally caused a horrific chain
reaction that changed the lives of
everyone around them including
themselves the man closest to the
accident hisachiouchi would suffer the
worst consequences of all becoming the
most radioactive man in history a title
literally no one has ever wished for yet
he was kept alive for months even while
he wanted to die how did this happen
located 75 miles northeast of tokyo in
ibaraki prefecture tokamura was selected
as an ideal location for a nuclear power
plant thanks to the abundance of empty
land something that was and still is a
premium in japan soon the complex would
expand to include nuclear reactors
research institutes disposal facilities
and fuel enrichment centers japan had
constructed its first commercial nuclear
power plant in 1961 the country had few
natural power generating resources and
accelerated its nuclear energy program
in an attempt to lessen its dependence
on expensive imported energy this meant
that the nuclear industry was rapidly
growing and provided good job
opportunities one-third of tokyo's
population ended up relying on the
nuclear industry and ibrakari for power
hisachi uchi born in 1965 started
working in the plant as a technician
sometime in the late 1980s the purpose
of the plant was to convert uranium
hexafluoride into enriched uranium for
use in nuclear energy the process needed
to be very precise each step conducted
carefully and timed perfectly each
element mixed in exact proportions
unfortunately ochi was about to discover
that tokaimura's training and safety
standards were as one greenpeace
official stated on par with those of a
bakery the first slip up with the plant
happened on march 11 1997. locals heard
an explosion one day that reverberated
throughout the entire town and looked up
in horror to see the power reactor on
fire instead of sending people to
examine what went wrong and ensure it
never happened again the japanese
government launched a cover-up to hide
the extent of the negligence that had
produced the explosion a few dozen
people in the area were affected by the
radiation but the story didn't make big
headlines in 1999 the officials
directing plant operations had clearly
failed to learn any lessons from their
previous slip up they started
experimenting with skipping some steps
here and there when dealing with
enriched uranium to see if they could
produce nuclear fuel faster because when
it comes to creating nuclear energy our
safety precautions really that important
by the time september rolled around the
plant was facing tight deadlines the
staff were supposed to dissolve and mix
enriched uranium oxide with nitric acid
to produce urinal nitrate commonly used
as nuclear fuel workers had already
missed a september 28th deadline that
their bosses imposed for generating this
fuel even while cutting corners when it
came to safety procedures so on the
morning of september 30th hisachi uchi
along with his co-worker masato sinohara
and his 54 year old supervisor yutaka
yokocawa decided to try one more
shortcut the problem is despite the fact
that they all had years of experience on
the job ochi had been working at the
plant for more than 10 years at this
point none of them had been trained well
enough to know what they were doing or
what the horrific effects of doing the
wrong thing could be around 10 am ouchi
and his co-workers started to mix the
enriched uranium with nitric acid
instead however of using automatic pumps
that would mix exactly 5.3 pounds of
uranium in a container designated for
that purpose they used their hands their
hands to pour not 5.3 but 35 pounds of
uranium into steel buckets suddenly at
10 35 am a blue flash exploded across
the room the uranium had reached
critical mass and initiated a chain
reaction causing nuclear fissions lethal
amounts of radiation were now leaking
everywhere setting off the gamma
radiation alarms hearing the alarms go
off the workers realized they made a
critical likely fatal mistake but it was
all too late ocho experienced immediate
intense pain and vomiting after not
being able to breathe while he collapsed
unconscious ouchi and his colleagues
were immediately transported to the
hospital doctors found that yokocawa had
been exposed to three sieverts of
radiation as he was the furthest away at
his desk shinohara had been hit by 10
sieverts and oogie who was standing
directly over the steel bucket when the
reaction happened had absorbed 17
sieverts of radiation this officially
meant he had been exposed to the highest
amount of radiation a human had ever
observably received to understand
exactly how bad this was the safe level
of radiation for humans to absorb within
a year caps out at 100 millisieverts
after that cancer risk starts to
increase an average x-ray exposes a
person to
0.01 millisieverts five sieverts of
radiation would kill half the people
exposed to it within a period of a month
anything over 10 sieverts is
automatically considered fatal shinohara
who had absorbed 10 secrets lasted for
seven months in the hospital before
dying of lung and liver failure yokokawa
after a long hospital stay thankfully
managed to survive though he ended up
facing criminal charges of negligence
ochi had no such luck and would not only
die but experience one of the most
brutally painful and slow deaths in
history he had severe radiation burns on
his whole body and his eyes were leaking
blood his white blood cells were almost
fully wiped out and he had experienced
severe horrific damage to all of his
major organs without medical
intervention he would immediately have
died the medical staff placed ouchi in a
special war to prevent him from coming
into contact with hospital-born
pathogens as his immune system was
non-existent however they soon realized
the extent of the damage to uchi's body
and organs was way beyond anything they
could deal with and three days later he
was transferred to the university of
tokyo hospital in his first week in the
hospital doctors tried experimental
cancer treatments to replenish his white
blood cells they also performed almost
constant skin grafts and blood
transfusions to lessen the severity of
his burns and keep ochi alive the
process was unbelievably torturous for
ouchi after just a week at the hospital
he begged the doctors to let him go i
can't take it anymore i'm not a guinea
pig unfortunately the doctors partly
thanks to oogie's own family wishes
didn't listen oji's family including his
wife younger sister and young son held
on to the slimmest of hopes that their
loved one could survive they refused to
sign a dnr do not resuscitate paperwork
and wouldn't agree to any humane
euthanasia so medical staff forged ahead
with the innovative stem cell
transplants using the patient's own
sister's stem cells something that had
never before been used or suggested for
radiation victims up to this point the
goal was to help luchi generate new
blood on his own at first doctors were
elated when the transplant appeared to
temporarily work and help uchi however
he soon spiraled right back down there
was so much radiation surging through
his body that it killed off all the new
cells it came into contact with the
radiation thwarted the doctor's every
attempt to keep ugee alive it had
damaged his chromosomes beyond repair as
a result uchi's dna could not rebuild
itself which also meant each new skin
graft went to waste as the body could
not repair itself enough to hold onto it
soon ochi's skin would start to melt and
detach from its body the extent of his
suffering at that point was extreme
after 59 days in the hospital ochi
suffered a heart attack however his
family had given instructions to
resuscitate him should the worst happen
so doctors did and this was just the
first of many times they would have to
bring ochi back to life at one point in
which he had three heart attacks in one
hour each time he temporarily died he
was suffering even more and more brain
damage for the last few weeks of his
hospital stay he was barely responsive
finally after 83 days one final heart
attack sent auchi over the edge that
he'd been dangling on for weeks on
december 21 1999 after multiple organ
system failure ochi's heart gave out and
he died in the weeks following the
tokaimura accident and then ouchi's
death a lot of scrutiny fell on both the
company running a nuclear plant and the
ethical implications of keeping ouchie
alive in pain for so long regarding the
plant the japanese government would
identify a total of 63 people in the
area who were exposed to dangerous
radiation from the accident this
included 14 workers at the plant who
tried to stop the nuclear reaction in
its tracks the accident wasn't fully
contained until 17 to 20 hours later
when workers managed to empty all the
water from the tanks and poured in boric
acid to halt the reaction in its tracks
at first local officials minimized the
extent of the damage with the local
governor masaru hashimoto saying
initially we did not see the accident as
being so serious however when other
groups came in to investigate they
concluded that a much larger number of
people were exposed to radiation than
the government officially estimated all
families close to the plant were
evacuated and an additional 300 000
people in the surrounding area were told
to stay inside for 24 hours greenpeace
energy specialist jan rispins who was on
the scene shortly after the accident had
a lot to say about the matter according
to her tokaimura plant had the safety
standards of a bakery not a nuclear
facility and it was just a normal
building investigations in the plant's
operations unearthed unbelievable lapses
in safety standards the officials who
operated the plant admitted workers had
been using illegal corner cutting
procedures for seven or eight years the
fact that nothing too terrible happened
until that point was a miracle
investigators also discovered that many
plant employees did not even understand
and had not been taught the concept of
criticality aka what happens to produce
nuclear fission and how one might
accidentally cause it so that's right
the company that operated the plant jco
didn't think it was necessary to educate
its workers on how they might
accidentally cause a nuclear explosion
while they were handling nuclear
material to cap it all off company
officials admitted they didn't really
have any protocol for this kind of
accident because they never expected it
to happen yep with all the disregard in
the world for safety procedures and a
lack of any kind of training for
technicians working with nuclear
material the bosses of jco company just
woke up every day thinking things at the
plant would keep humming along until
they accidentally created the most
radioactive man in the world as for ochi
people had many differing opinions on
doctors continuous attempts to keep him
alive through so much pain and suffering
some believe that the medical team at
the university of tokyo hospital was
partly curious to have first-hand
observable test cases of a human being
who'd been exposed to such massive
amounts of radiation and this was one of
the reasons inju was kept alive for so
long in fact the medical team that
attended to him has after the fact come
under severe scrutiny by many people for
their actions however the doctors who
tended to mr ochi made it clear the
process was very painful for them and
the attempts they made to keep their
patient alive was at the direct repeated
requests of his family this was in
addition to the fact that the doctors
were quite simply stunned and not even
sure what to do half the time because of
the uniqueness of the situation chief
physician kazuhiku maikawa told korem
news it was the first time i experienced
such a case in my 30 plus years as a
doctor almost every day we came across
situations that were not covered in the
medical textbooks and there were tough
moments and continuing treatment without
any sign of a way out regarding ouchi's
family maekawa made it clear that their
desire to keep him alive never wavered
even when the patient fell into critical
condition the family never gave up hope
and i think that showed how much the
family wanted mr uchi to keep living so
was the treatment of hisashi ouchi the
most radioactive man who ever lived for
83 days against his will a case of
questionable medical practices or a
family who wouldn't give up hope or
perhaps both let us know what you think
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