Tragic story of what happened when boy, 10, unknowingly brought radioactive capsule inside his house
Topics: News, World News, Mexico
Gerrard Kaonga
Featured Image Credit: Getty/Bjoern Wylezich/Getty/Satakorn
Topics: News, World News, Mexico
One small act by a 10-year-old boy resulted in multiple members of his family dying of radiation poisoning in a heartbreaking incident.
Getting your hands on radioactive material is no easy feat, but one incident in 1962 saw a child somehow get ahold of a radioactive capsule.
Unfortunately, this would spell disaster for himself and his family.
The 10-year-old, from Mexico, found a radioactive cobalt-60 capsule and took it home in his pocket, likely not knowing what it was or how dangerous it could be.
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Apparently, the capsule wasn't in its proper shielding, which would have controlled and reduced the radiation areas around it.
To make matters worse, not only was he exposed to the radiation, but his entire family was as well.
The tragic incident happened back in 1962, and it is still not clear how the child was able to find the item in the first place.
Over the years, people have speculated, with some suggesting that he found it in a dump or in a field, or that the capsule was already in the garden of the Mexico City-based home that the 10-year-old and his family moved into in March 1962.
According to a IFL science report, a report into the poisonings by a doctor stated: "The source was left to the family to keep and watch without any of the members of the family knowing exactly what the container was and what it contained.”
After making the discovery, the child died 38 days later. Unfortunately, he had kept the capsule in his pocket for several days before his mother found it and put it in a kitchen cabinet.
This meant the small child was regularly and constantly exposed to the radiation.
Inside the cabinet, the radioactive material was placed next to some drinking glass, and over the weeks began to turn them black.
However, the family did not put two and two together and was not aware the blackening of glass could be a sign of radiation exposure.
Heartbreakingly, his mother (who was pregnant at the time), grandmother, and two-year-old sister also died in the months that followed the boy's passing as a result of radiation exposure.
The father of the family, who said to have been exposed to 900-1,200 radiation absorbed doses (rad), was the only survivor.
In comparison, his son had been exposed to a huge 4,700-5,200 rad.