Doctors tried everything but they couldn’t save him
Horrific details have emerged of a man who ‘burned from the inside out’ for 83 days in what is thought to be the most painful deaths ever recorded.
Hisashi Ouchi from Japan was exposed to a record-breaking amount of radiation after working at a uranium processing plant in Tokaimura, 70 miles northeast of Tokyo.
The 35-year-old along with two of his colleagues were responsible for preparing uranium to be used as nuclear fuel on September 30, 1999.
But a fatal mistake saw his workmate Masato Shinohara and supervisor Yutaka Yokokawa add 16kg of uranium into a processor, which is significantly higher than the safe limit of 2.4kg.
Moments later, radiation alarms started going off as they quickly became sick.
Ouchi was exposed to 17,000 millisieverts of radiation, the most recorded by any person at a single time.
Shinohara absorbed 10,000 mSv, while Yokokawa was hit by an estimated 3,000 mSv.
The safety limit is 20 mSv per year, with 5,000 mSv considered deadly.
They were all rushed to hospital with Ouchi deteriorating over a course of 83 days, as the radiation caused his skin to peel and his eyelids to ‘fall off’.
He soon began to have breathing problems as fluid built up in his lungs and he needed a medical ventilator to breathe for him.
The cells in his gut that help absorb food and medication also died, which led to horrific stomach pains, and him producing a staggering three litres of diarrhoea each day.
So severe were his injuries that he required 10 blood transfusions a day due to keep him alive following internal bleeding.
Despite several skin grafts and stem cell transplants, Ouchi continued to deteriorate and the strong painkillers provided little relief.
He requested medics stopped treating him as the pain got so bad. Ouchi’s heart gave way on his 59th day in hospital but he was resuscitated three times.
On December 21, he died from multiple organ failure.
Just a few months later in April 2000, Shinohara also died of multiple organ failure at just 40. Yokokawa was released after three months with minor radiation sickness.
