A freak accident at a Japanese nuclear plant more than 20 years ago exposed a technician to the highest levels of radiation ever suffered by a human being. Hisashi Ouchi came to be known as the 'world's most radioactive man' after suffering the accident.
Albert Stevens (1887–1966), also known as patient CAL-1 and most radioactive human ever, was a house painter from Ohio who was subjected to an involuntary human radiation experiment and survived the highest known accumulated radiation dose in any human.
It was his family's request to keep him alive. The doctors wanted to let his family know there was no hope left for him, but his family wanted him to live so...
On the morning of Sept. 30, 1999, at a nuclear fuel-processing plant in Tokaimura, Japan, 35-year-old Hisashi Ouchi and two other workers were purifying uranium oxide to make fuel rods for a research reactor.
How sensitive the body is to radiation. Individual sensitivity to radiation is also a factor. A developing fetus is the most vulnerable to the effects of radiation. Infants, children, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems are more vulnerable to health effects than healthy adults.
We show that radiation effects are sex-specific, and long-term radiosensitivity in females is higher than that in males.
Individuals exposed at early ages are the most radiosensitive as the primary damage has a longer latent phase to outbreak into cancer. After that, sensitivity to radiation decreases until maturity, but it increases again at older ages.
Being exposed to anything more than 5 sieverts of radiation is fatal. Hisashi Ouchi was exposed to about 17 sieverts and was kept alive for 83 days.
Hisashi Ouchi didn't die immediately. Far worse, his DNA was utterly destroyed. His chromosomes shattered like glass, breaking into disparate pieces that couldn't be understood or identified.
The ICRP recommends that any exposure above the natural background radiation should be kept as low as reasonably achievable, but below the individual dose limits. The individual dose limit for radiation workers averaged over 5 years is 100 mSv, and for members of the general public, is 1 mSv per year.
1. The Painful and Endless Death of Samuel Clark. Based on the story of Hisashi Ouchi, this film tells the story of a Nuclear scientist who is exposed to a fatal dose of radiation, from his exposure, the relentless treatments through to his inevitable death, 83 days later.
What was the highest acute radiation dose ever survived? About 300,000 rads. For context, 400 rads is normally enough to kill 50% of humans.
Photographs of Hisashi Ouchi's chromosomes show them completely decimated. The profuse amount of radiation coursing through his blood eradicated the introduced cells. And images of Hisashi Ouchi show that the skin grafts could not hold because his DNA couldn't rebuild itself. “I can't take it anymore,” cried Ouchi.
On 4 July 1934, at the Sancellemoz Sanatorium in Passy, France at the age of 66, Marie Curie died. The cause of her death was given as aplastic pernicious anaemia, a condition she developed after years of exposure to radiation through her work.
Radiation burn or radiation dermatitis is a common side effect of external beam radiation therapy to treat some forms of cancer. This type of radiation therapy delivers radiation through a machine that targets cancerous cells. The treatment isn't painful. But it can make your skin sore, peel, itch or turn red.
Current status. According to a report by the Worldwatch Institute on nuclear waste, Karachay is the most polluted (open-air) place on Earth from a radiological point of view.
Hisashi Ouchi, 35, was transported and treated at the University of Tokyo Hospital for 83 days. Ouchi suffered serious radiation burns to most of his body, experienced severe damage to his internal organs, and had a near-zero white blood cell count.
Hisashi Ouchi, aged 35, died 12 weeks after the accident. He had lost most of his skin, and was kept alive for 83 days, according to his parents and wife will. Ouchi was closest to the tank when the accident occurred. He ended up as the first victim of this nuclear accident.
The 1999 Tokaimura accident occurred in a small fuel preparation plant operated by JCO (formerly Japan Nuclear Fuel Conversion Co.), a subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. The plant supplied various specialised research and experimental reactors and was not part of the electricity production fuel cycle.
By keeping Ouchi alive for 83 days the doctors of the University of Tokyo Hospital did the opposite of what they are trained to do, limit human suffering. Ouchi would go on to hold the record for the highest exposure to radiation and subsequent survival.
Now, the EPA uses this system, called RadNet, to look at background radiation levels at many locations across the United States. Background radiation is around us all the time, mostly from natural sources, like naturally-occurring radon and uranium.
The official death toll directly attributed to Chernobyl that is recognized by the international community is just 31 people with the UN saying it could be 50. However, hundreds of thousands of “liquidators” were sent in to put out the fire at the nuclear power plant and clean up the Chernobyl site afterwards.
There is no recommended limit on how many computed tomography (CT) scans you can have. CT scans provide critical information. When a severely ill patient has undergone several CT exams, the exams were important for diagnosis and treatment.
However, few people know that tobacco also contains radioactive materials: polonium-210 and lead-210. Together, the toxic and radioactive substances in cigarettes harm smokers. They also harm people exposed to secondhand smoke.