83 days burned from the inside: what is known about the most painful death in history (3 photo)

Man suffers record radiation exposure after uranium processing plant accident.





Hisashi Ouchi, a 35-year-old Japanese worker, was exposed to unprecedented levels of radiation while working at a uranium processing plant in Tokaimura.

On September 30, 1999, he and two other co-workers were tasked with preparing uranium for use in nuclear fuel. However, a fatal error occurred when his colleague Masato Shinohara and supervisor Yutaka Yokokawa added 16 kilograms of uranium to the processor, well above the safe limit of 2.4 kilograms.

Almost immediately, a radiation alarm sounded and the men fell ill. Ouchi was exposed to a shocking 17,000 millisieverts (mSv), the highest ever recorded for a single person.



Meanwhile, Shinohara absorbed 10,000 mSv, and Yokokawa, just a few meters away at his desk, received about 3,000 mSv. The safe limit is 20 mSv per year, and 5,000 mSv is considered fatal.

The men were immediately taken to a local hospital.

Ouchi's condition worsened over the course of 83 days as the radiation caused his skin to peel and his eyelids to "fall off" due to tissue necrosis. He developed severe breathing problems, requiring a ventilator as fluid built up in his lungs.



The intestinal cells needed to digest food and medicine were killed, causing him to have excruciating stomach pain and pass three liters of diarrhea a day. Ouchi required 10 blood transfusions daily to stop the internal bleeding.

The loss of skin accelerated, fluid leaked from his raw flesh, and despite attempts at skin grafts and stem cell transplants, there was no improvement. Even strong painkillers could not ease his suffering, and his eyes began to "weep blood."

The agony became so unbearable that Ouchi begged doctors to stop treatment. After his heart failed on the 59th day, he was resuscitated three times.

However, on December 21, on his 83rd day in the hospital, Ouchi died of multiple organ failure. A few months later, in April 2000, Shinohara also died of the same cause at the age of 40.

Yokokawa, another victim, was hospitalized but was eventually discharged after three months with mild radiation sickness.