His loved ones must have been desperate for the doctors medical interventions and experimental remedies to save poor Ouchis life and for him to be returned to them - no matter the state he was in. Elisabeth Edwards is a public historian and history content writer. He ended up as the first victim of this nuclear accident. The plant was evacuated as Hisashi Ouchi and his colleagues were taken to the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba. The room exploded with a blue flash that confirmed that a nuclear chain reaction had occurred and was releasing lethal emissions of radiation. Over time, dozens of companies and government institutes were established nearby to provide nuclear research, experimentation, manufacturing, and fuel fabrication, enrichment and disposal facilities. The mixing process required adding a certain ingredient to the mixture. An x-ray shows the cellular degradation caused by autophagy, wherein the bodys cells are destroyed by intense radiation. He began to require oxygen, and his abdomen swelled, according to the book. The technicians poured the product by hand in stainless-steel buckets directly into a precipitation tank. [12] Under correct operating procedure, uranyl nitrate would be stored inside a buffer tank and gradually pumped into the precipitation tank in 2.4kg (5.3lb) increments. Cell transplant specialist Hisamura Hirai next suggested a revolutionary approach that had never been tried on radiation victims before: stem cell transplants. Earnings, Prison, Know About The Mother Gina Debose, TheTony Award Host, According to Ariana DeBose, Who Is Renata Kuko, Toni Kukos Wife? The 35-year-old nuclear power plant technician had almost zero white blood cells and thus no immune system. It wasn't the first time it had happened. None of the men had been trained to perform such sensitive procedures, and it was later found that there was 16kg of uranium in the mixture, when the limit was 2.4kg. [27] This suit was followed by the company presidents resignation. Finally on October 12th it was discovered that a roof ventilation fan had been left on and it was shut-down. There have been various estimates of the exact amount, but a 2010 presentation by Masashi Kanamori of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency put the amount at 16 to 25 gray equivalents (GyEq), while Shinohara, who was about 18 inches (46 centimeters) away, received a lesser but still extremely harmful dose of about 6 to 9 GyEq and a third man, who was further away, was exposed to less radiation. A powerful burst of radiation was released at 10.35 a.m. local time, (1.35 a.m. Irish time), delivering a likely fatal dose to Hisashi Ouchi and Masato Shinohara. After 83 days in the hospital, Hisashi Ouchi died from a heart attack induced by multiple organ failure on December 21, 1999. Eventually, it was discovered that a roof ventilation fan had been left on, spreading the radioactive matter into the air. Doctors placed him in a special ward to prevent infection and assessed the damage to his internal organs. On September 30, 1999, Hisashi Ouchi and two colleagues at the Japan Nuclear Fuel Conversion Co. (JCO) were rushing to complete an order of nuclear fuel before the shipping deadline at the Tokaimura Nuclear Plant, Japan's first nuclear power station. Dnen facility officials initially reported a 20 percent increase of radiation levels in the area surrounding the reprocessing plant but later revealed the true percent was ten times higher than initially published. All three of them experienced high doses of radiation. Internet articles frequently describe Ouchi as 'the most radioactive man in history,' or words to that effect, but nuclear expert Lyman stops a bit short of that assessment. A week after the event, meteorological officials detected unusually high levels of caesium 40 kilometers (25 miles) south-west of the plant. He was a skilled technician who had previously worked at the Tokaimura nuclear reactor. Even after the plant was completely sealed off, radioactive gas levels remained high. On the 59th day of his therapy, Ouchis lifeless corpse suffered three heart attacks in less than an hour. The designed wide cylindrical shape made it favorable to criticality. It was JCOs first batch of fuel for the Joyo reactor in three years, and employees were never given proper training for the whole process. Health checks conducted on all residents, measuring radiation; schools reopened and government press conferences held, International Atomic Energy Agency: Report on the preliminary fact finding mission following the accident at the nuclear fuel processing facility in Tokaimura, Japan, 1999, This page was last edited on 9 February 2023, at 07:14. Following the incident, Hisashi Ouchis health alarmed the public, and netizens are now interested in seeing his actual photos. It took 15 days for JCO to provide the public with sandbags and other protective equipment. Five hours after the start of the criticality, evacuation commenced of some 161 people from 39 households within a 350-meter radius from the conversion building. ago Gotta love the last unrelated photo. Disturbingly, the method appeared to work before Ouchi returned to his state of near-death. Who Is It REALLY in the "Hisashi Ouchi" Photo? He would eventually have three heart attacks in one hour. The technicians saw a blue flash in the tank, likely a sign of intense radiation, as the chain reaction continued and radiation alarms sounded. In October, six officials from JCO were charged with professional negligence derived from failure to properly train technicians and knowingly subverting safety procedures. The resulting nuclear fission chain became self-sustaining, emitting intense gamma and neutron radiation. A worker in the next building became aware of the injured employees and contacted emergency medical assistance; an ambulance escorted them to the nearest hospital. A photo of a tank of uranium hexafluoride, a material used to make uranium fuel. Photographs of Hisashi Ouchis chromosomes show them completely decimated. He endured radical cancer treatment, numerous successful skin grafts, and a transfusion from congealed umbilical cord blood (to boost stem cell count). [24], In April 2001 six employees, including the chief of production department at the time, pleaded guilty to a charge of negligence resulting in death. The solution added to the tank contained seven times the legal limit of aqueous uranyl nitrate a radioactive fuel used to power nuclear reactors. Radiation literally damages your DNA. Despite his seven month battle, he was unable to fight radiation induced infections and internal bleeding, resulting in fatal lung and kidney failure. Ultimately the incident was classified as an irradiation not contamination accident under Level 4 on the Nuclear Event Scale. [22] 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. Ouchi was closest to the tank when the accident occurred. Six days after the accident, a specialist who looked at images of the chromosomes in Ouchi's bone marrow cells saw only scattered black dots, indicating that they were broken into pieces. [11] Enriching nuclear fuel requires precision and has the potential to impose extreme risks to technicians. ", The radiation dose in a criticality accident can be even worse than in a catastrophic accident at a nuclear power plant, such as the 1986 reactor explosion at Chernobyl in Ukraine, then a part of the Soviet Union, where the radiation was dispersed. The nuclear power plant in Tkai operated for another decade until the 2011 Thoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Answer (1 of 16): The pic is NOT Mr.Ouchi to start. Sign up to the Daily Star's newsletter. The second was a criticality accident at a separate fuel reprocessing facility belonging to Japan Nuclear Fuel Conversion Co. (JCO) on 30 September 1999 due to improper handling of liquid uranium fuel. [12] Had the company corrected the errors after the 1997 incident, the 1999 incident would have been considerably less devastating or may not have happened. The buffer tank containing the combined ingredients is specially designed to prevent fission activity from reaching criticality. 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(Image-Twitter) Being exposed to anything more than 5 sieverts of radiation is fatal. But despite experiencing such huge levels of radiation, Ouchi did not die - at least not immediately. The most critically ill of the workers, Hisashi Ouchi, 35, was exposed to about 17 sieverts of radiation, according to the Science and Technology Agency's National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba, near Tokyo. Hisashi Ouchi Suffered an 83-day Death By Radiation Poisoning By: Patrick J. Kiger | Aug 8, 2022 Hisashi Ouchi was a handsome, powerfully built, former high school rugby player with a wife and young son when he was exposed to what was probably the highest dose of accidental radiation in history. Bio, Age, Family, Height, Relationship, Who is KevOnStage? In the final process, uranium oxide is placed in the dissolving tanks until purified, without enriching the isotopes, in a wet-process technology specialized by Japan.[12]. 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hisashi ouchi photos