Featured Image Credit: Public domain
Topics: World News, Health, Science
Rhianna Benson
If the name Hisashi Ouchi doesn't ring any bells, the heart-stopping 1999 nuclear disaster in Japan - that left him 'crying blood', saw his 'skin melt' and eventually cost him his life - likely will.
Back in September 1999, Ouchi was responsible for purifying uranium oxide at Tokaimura's nuclear fuel-processing plant in order to produce fuel rods for a research reactor.
What started off as a regular working day soon led to what many spectators later described as the 'most painful death imaginable', after Ouchi and two co-workers accidentally triggered the release of radiation from an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction.
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The workers had attempted to pour uranium into a huge metal vat - with Ouchi assisting another colleague with the dangerous task at the time - when the harmful liquid reached 'critical point' after a colossal miscalculation.
Of the 119 members of staff that were subjected to the harmful radiation, 35-year-old Ouchi bore the brunt of the release.
After initially suffering some burns, becoming dizzy and violently vomiting, he never anticipated the agony of what happened next.
Having been exposed to 17 Sieverts (sv) of harmful radiation - double what is considered lethal, and more than any other human had ever suffered - the intensity of Ouchi's pain only worsened, and he struggled to breathe.
For comparison, those who first responded to Chernobyl's explosion back in 1986 were exposed to just 0.25 sv.
Ouchi was immediately transported the the University of Tokyo Hospital, where he was diagnosed with severely depleted white blood cells, and requiring extensive skin grafts and multiple blood transfusions.
Local reports from the time of the incident recorded that he was 'crying blood', desperate for doctors to stop treating him and put him out of his misery.
"I can't take it any more! I am not a guinea pig!" he is said to have implored.
His bone marrow cells began indicating fragmentation and doctors noted that he was unable to regenerate any new cells.
Two weeks after the incident, Ouchi was no longer able to consume food and had to eat intravenously.
After two months, he suffered heart failure, but medics were able to revive him, much to his own despair.
On day 83, Ouchi's body eventually gave out and he died as a result of multiple organ failure, after suffering in unfathomable pain for just under three months.