Hisashi Ouchi, better known as the radioactive man, was kept alive for 83 days until his skin melted.
… And he cried blood.
Now you will be wondering how did it happen to him? Or are we speaking metaphorically? Well, we wish we were speaking metaphorically, but that is what actually happened to the man.
Hisashi Ouchi was one of the three workers that had received a high dose of radiation while working in a small Japanese plan in 1999. He was working on a project which was to prepare fuel for an experimental reactor.
During that project, plenty amount of Uranium was enriched to a fairly high level. It resulted in “criticality,” or in simple words, a limited uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction.
The reaction criticality went on for 20 hours straight and affected 119 people. However, almost all of them remained safe during the incident because the radiation dose was over one mSv.
However, the incident badly affected three people who received extremely high doses of radiation. Two of the workers eventually died, and one of them was Hisashi Ouchi, the radiation man.
As for Hisashi, his agony was a little different from the rest. He was kept alive for 83 days after the incident, and the man’s skin started to melt. His agony was to last until finally, the man cried blood, and the soul escaped from the body.
It was the unbearable pain Hisashi went through AFTER the incident. So with that being said, let’s dive into the details of the incident and the suffering that Hisashi had to take.
Just before we begin, we would like to use this space as a disclaimer to warn those who don’t want to read sensitive details.
What Happened When He Rushed To The Hospital?
After the incident, Hisashi Ouchi was rushed to the hospital. Soon as he reached the University of Tokyo Hospital, doctors who attended to the man discovered that Hisashi had lost all of his white blood cells and thus, he had no immune system.
You see, all the medications that we have out here require some level of the immune system, generally speaking, and those medications aid the immune system in overcoming the illness.
But this was not a ‘general’ case by any means, and the complexity of the case soon became more evident.
Hisashi Ouchi’s skin soon started to melt, and the man was crying blood. The man was immediately rushed to the care and taken to a special radiation ward later. The special radiation ward helped Hisashi Ouchi stay safe from hospital-borne pathogens.
But all of these safety measures were being taken to prevent the situation from getting worse. But life was already turned into hell for the man. He was suffering from heart attacks daily.
It is also said about the man that he regularly cried for his mother and was leaking fluids. However, his agony ended after an 83-day long hell when Hisashi finally died from a cardiac arrest.
How Tokaimura’s Nuclear Incident Came Into Being?
Hisashi Ouchi was born in Japan in 1965. Just a few years earlier, the country turned to nuclear power production. Soon, Japan’s first commercial nuclear power plant came into being. And the progress was achieved by the country a few years earlier than Ouchi’s birth.
For Japan, it was pretty important to become independent of the imported energy because it was getting too costly for the country. What only added to the dilemma was the country’s few natural resources.
Leaving no other choice for the country, nuclear power production became pretty inevitable.
Soon the country started gaining independence with regard to imported energy, and most of Japan enjoyed its own power supply.
The nuclear power plant was set up in Tokaimura as it had plenty of areas. It was doing pretty good in terms of power production until one day, Hisashi Ouchi and two of his other peers planned to try a shortcut, as per the reported facts about the team.
As per the reported facts, it seems like the team had no idea as to what are the protocols of enriched Uranium. It is reported that the quantity of Uranium that was poured into the tank was seven times more than appropriate.
Hisashi Ouchi, as reported, was standing right over the vessel when the Gamma rays took over the room. This is where his agony began.
Conclusion
After the incident had occurred, Hisashi Ouchi and two of his other colleagues were immediately rushed to the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba. Of all people that were working in the plant, these three were most affected by the radiation.
It is said that a human being can take seven sieverts at max. However, Hisashi was far beyond that point. Instead of 7, he was exposed to Seventeen sieverts of radiation, whereas his other colleague was exposed to ten.
Both men died. The only one of the three who survived was Yutaka Yokokawa, who only received three sieverts of radiation.
