Can't Let Him Die

Newspaper of the time reporting the accident

(Translated and compiled by Saya)

24: Anonymous 2006/10/15(Sun) 02:09:41 ID:lLO+L+yO0

Tokaimura criticality accident, triggered by JCO

Tokaimura nuclear accident in 1999

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident 

The worst civilian nuclear radiation accident in Japan prior to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of 2011.

969 :Anonymous：2006/10/15(日) 01:53:32 ID:yo9f4S3g0
>>960
From what I heard, the workers's bodies were severely damaged by neutron
and lost all regenerative ability

The report spoke of necrosis in some parts of the bodies and they died of heart attacks?

981 :Anonymous：2006/10/15(Sun) 01:55:08 ID:LRvDvToC0
>>969
I saw the pictures.

His body was a total wreck but he was still alive.
Really horrible...

A black-and-white photo of the faces of one of the victims in the course of his treatment:
*WARNING contains graphic image* 

http://siustoreroom.blogspot.com/2018/09/tokaimura-accident-victim.html

28: Anonymous: 2006/10/15(Sun) 12:54:51 ID:iyomPQM50
>>24
Everyone would agree that they would rather die than suffer this way.

Right after the exposure to radiation, he had some blisters, but otherwise he looked normal.
But being exposed to high radiation doses shatter your DNA and as a result your body stops generating new cells.
The brain and heart cells have slower metabolism, so they are the last ones to be affected by radiation damage.
So even though your body is ruined beyond repair, you are still fully conscious, and since your heart is still working you stay alive.

They injected a large dosage of morphine - beyond the limit of what a human body can normally endure - into his body, but it had no effect on him.
Everyday, he was given litres after litres of blood transfusion and had 2 to 3 kg of diarrhea (his internal organs were dissolving and coming out of his body as fluids).
His heart had been beating as fast as someone who is doing the 100 metre sprint, ever since the accident.

It meant the modern medical science had advanced to the point that it could keep someone in such a condition alive, but that wasn't the sole reason why his life was prolonged.
He was regarded as a "rare case" and became the object of study, falling prey to eager scientists and researchers, and because those people kept flocking in from all over the world to observe him, they couldn't let him die even if they wanted to.

When I think about how it was all caused by the sloppy supervision, I can't help but feel human beings are by far scarier than any paranormal beings.
Those who had been irradiated cannot even be allowed to be laid in rest in ordinary graves. I can only wish them R.I.P.



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Below is a snippet of the documentary that contains a brief description of the accident and also interviews given by the doctor and nurses who cared for Mr. Ouchi:

The same documentary in full length with English subtitles:

The transcript of the video:
http://siustoreroom.blogspot.com/2018/09/tokaimura-criticality-accident-1999.html

The radiation damage also appeared on the surface of his body. About a week after the accident, scars from removing surgical tape became no longer able to heal.

"At first, we used surgical tape as usual. However, it became more and more frequent that his skin was ripped off along with the removed tape. Eventually, we couldn't use surgical tape anymore."

Healthy skin cells divide rapidly and new cells replace old ones. However, in Ouchi's irradiated skin, new cells were no longer generated. His old skin was falling off. Intense pain in his skin. The battle against infection. He had developed fluid retention in his lungs and he began to experience difficulty in breathing.

These are Ouchi's words in his nursing records.
(I can't stand it!)
(I wanna go home!)
(Stop it!)
(Mom!)

The medical team considered putting him on a respirator to help him breathe easier. That meant he would become unable to have conversations with his family. Ouchi talked to his wife who visited him.

"At that time, Mr. Ouchi was probably feeling weariness and heaviness, and he seemed to need to gather strength just to speak. In spite of that, he was smiling slightly and said to his wife 'I love you' in a tender tone. Seeing that kind of scenes made our hearts ache. It was true that nobody knew for sure what would happen to him, but we were able to imagine that his condition would get worse and worse. I guess he himself was also aware of that. In that situation, he told his family of his love. I wonder how he felt when he said to his wife 'I love you.' I think it was a heartwarming moment, but ... I don't know what to say ... I think his words represented what he wanted to tell his family."

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20:Anonymous: 2012/8/15/ 21:06:12 : p1Jwnbn1zY

One nurse who cared for Mr. Ouchi said that all of his skin completely fell off, and his whole body had to be soaked in silver nitrate solution* for disinfection, and to her the whole scene was like "Hell on Earth."
If this kind of facts became more widely known, I suspect there would be no one left who would approve of nuclear power plants.

*Danger of silver nitrate (pdf)

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WARNING: The article linked below contains GRAPHIC IMAGES at the bottom

Hisashi Ouchi, the Victim of Beyond Fatal Radiation Kept Alive for 83 Days Against His Will

Hisashi Ouchi was one of the technicians working at a facility operated by JCO (formerly Japanese Nuclear Fuel Conversion Co.) in Tokai of Ibaraki Perfecture. He is one of the two fatalities of Tokaimura nuclear accident that exposed him to, perhaps, the highest amount of radiation any human had exposed so far. The ethical value of his prolonged treatment and efforts to keep him alive, that lasted for almost three months despite his wishes and the pain he had to endure, was questioned and the efforts received criticism.