A nuclear facility worker suffered what many experts have called the most excruciating death ever documented after a standard procedure went catastrophically wrong.
Hisashi Ouchi, 35, was exposed to an incomprehensible level of radiation when colleagues accidentally added excessive uranium into a processing tank, sparking an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction, on September 30, 1999.
The unfortunate Ouchi was nearest to the tank, resulting in his exposure to 17,000 millisieverts of radiation, equivalent to 200,000 X-rays.
The amount he received was 850 times the safe annual limit for nuclear facility workers, 140 times what people near Chernobyl experienced after the 1986 catastrophe, and the highest recorded exposure in human history.
Within seconds and minutes of his exposure, Ouchi became severely unwell. Whilst most people exposed to such levels would perish within days, Ouchi survived,reports the Mirror.
He was transported to hospital conscious but in critical condition, as his white blood cell count had been virtually eliminated, leaving him completely without immune defences.
Medical staff moved him to the University of Tokyo Hospital, where they tried various experimental procedures in a frantic attempt to save his life.
What followed was 83 days of torment for the nuclear facility worker.
Radiation had completely obliterated Ouchi's capacity to heal and regenerate cells, causing his skin to gradually deteriorate, his blood vessels to fail, and his eyelids to fall away. Fluids persistently seeped from his exposed tissue and accumulated in his lungs, necessitating doctors to keep him on a ventilator.
To compound matters, his digestive system completely shut down, resulting in severe pain and daily loss of litres of fluid. Despite numerous skin grafts and stem cell transfusions, nothing enabled his body to recover.
Source: Daily Express :: World Feed
