The Death of Hisashi Ouchi
Hisashi Ouchi was a 35 years old technician who worked at a nuclear facility. owned by the Japanese Nuclear Fuel Conversion Company, known as Tokaimura. On September 30, 1999. Hisashi was exposed to the highest amount of radiation any human has ever been exposed to in documented history. Hisashi and two of his coworkers were pouring aqueous uranyl nitrate solution from a bucket into a precipitation tank. As Hisashi was pouring the seventh bucket, a loud bang and a bright blue light came from the tank. The tank had reached a critical stage and released neutron beams and intense gamma radiation into the room. Hisashi was standing directly over the tank when it exploded and he was exposed to 17 sieverts of radiation. Exposure to 8 sieverts is fatal. The area was evacuated but Hisashi immediately started vomiting and experienced pain and breathing difficulties before losing consciousness. This was the first criticality accident to happen in japan and as a result Hisashi became a living experiment. Hisashi was air lifted to the National Institute of Radiological Sciences and was put in a private room. A week went by with no visible external damage apart from having red eyes and a swollen painful hand. He seemed quite well and was even joking around and talking to the nurses about getting better and going home. The Doctors did a micrograph of his bone marrow and discovered that his chromosomes were destroyed and his white blood cell count was completely depleted. His internal organs sustained massive damage. Soon after, his skin began falling off and the flesh underneath also began to deteriorate. He was put into a coma for a short time when his symptoms became too painful for him. His skin and flesh blistered and began to fall off in front of the doctors and his internal organs failed. He lost almost all of his body fluids in a single day, and more had to be pumped into him along with a blood transfusions. He was resuscitated 3 times despite begging for his suffering to end. He was then transferred to the University of Tokyo Hospital and underwent the world’s first transfusion of peripheral stem cells. Before losing consciousness Hisashi managed to say, “I can’t take it any more… I am not a guinea pig.” - but the doctors kept treating him to keep him alive. On November 27, Hisashi’s heart failed for 70 minutes, but the doctors kept him alive with blood transfusions and various drugs to keep his blood pressure and pulse stable. On December 21, his heart failed and the doctors did not resuscitate because his family wanted him to finally have a peaceful death. After an agonising 83 days, doctors allowed Hisashi to die. Following his death, physicians were criticised for their treatment of him. It was believed that he was kept alive so that the effects of radiation poisoning on a human body could be observed. His quality of life was not a concern.