What is it like to have your DNA broken, but you are forced to live for 83 days, and you see your body dissolve every day, but you can't do anything about it? Before explaining the contents of this issue, I would like to ask the question, what do you think is the most terrible way to die? I believe that everyone will think of the ancient Ling Chi execution for the first time. But with the development of the industrialization process, the emergence of nuclear energy has given birth to a more terrible way of death than Lingchi - nuclear radiation.
The Chernobyl nuclear accident in the former Soviet Union and the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in Japan must have been known to everyone. But what is being talked about today is another nuclear accident, which, while not as tragic as the previous two, is enough to shock the world. Because this accident detailed the whole process of death after the human body suffered severe nuclear radiation. So how exactly does nuclear radiation damage the human body? And how to avoid the harm caused by nuclear radiation?
On September 30, 1999, at the uranium purification plant of the Tokai Company in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, Ohuchi and two other colleagues were working on uranium purification. According to the normal purification operation, they need to dissolve the uranium powder in nitric acid, and then send it into the sedimentation tank to perform solid-liquid separation to make uranyl nitrate. The dissolution process is slow and requires constant manual agitation. To save time, one of the colleagues suggested that, contrary to normal operation, the uranium powder and nitric acid solution be poured directly into the sedimentation tank. This suggestion was not refuted. However, they did not expect that this operation was the turning point for them to die.
Subsequently, they began an abnormal purification process. Holding the funnel in his right hand and fixing the shelf of the sedimentation tank with his left hand, his colleague climbed to the top of the ladder and continuously poured 7 barrels of 2.4 grams of uranium powder and 10 liters of uranium-235-rich nitrate solution directly into the sedimentation tank. Suddenly, blue light flashed, gamma-ray radiation monitoring alarms sounded, and nuclear critical accidents occurred. You know, uranium 235 is a radioactive substance, when uranium 235 reaches a certain mass, the neutron density of the radiation is enough to undergo a chain fission reaction, and this mass is called critical mass. In layman's terms, exceeding this mass will cause an atomic bomb explosion similar to occur.
According to the post-mortem investigation, the critical mass of uranium in the sedimentation tank was 5.5 grams, and due to the wrong operation, the cumulative uranium in the sedimentation tank reached 16.8 kg, far exceeding the critical mass of uranium, so it led to the occurrence of this accident. Ouchi was the closest to the radiation source, receiving a radiation dose of 16 to 23 Gerry, which was 20,000 times the standard dose, and should have been able to escape death, but was forcibly extended by the doctor for 83 days, and finally passed away. His death was recorded in detail by Japanese hospitals.
On the third day of the accident, the Japanese government decided to transfer Ouchi to the University Hospital in order to fully treat Ouchi and gain clinical experience in treating patients with severe nuclear radiation. In charge of treating Ouchi hisa was Professor Kazuhiko Maekawa of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tokyo. When Ouchi was sent in, the doctors felt very healthy, but his arms were a little red like sunburns, and his right hand was a little swollen, but Ouchi's consciousness was still very clear, not like a person who had been severely irradiated. At this moment, the doctor believes that with their treatment, Ouchi will soon recover. But as everyone knows, nuclear radiation has only just begun to destroy Ouchi, and he is about to usher in a painful and long death process.
Soon, the 23 pairs of chromosomes that were originally arranged in an orderly manner in their bodies began to break and adhere, and eventually showed a disorderly phenomenon, resulting in all the DNA strands being broken. DNA carries the genetic information of living things, including the metabolism of cells. Once a problem arises, the proliferation of cells will not be able to proceed. That is to say, the normal metabolic death of old cells, without new cell replenishment, will cause damage to vascular endothelial cells, and a large amount of blood penetrates into the tissue fluid, which leads to the swelling of Ouchi's right hand when he first entered the hospital.
As a result, Ouchi's skin began to fall off in large chunks, and body fluids and blood began to ooze. At first, in order to prevent excessive blood loss, the doctor put tape on the skin peel, but it needed to be changed regularly, and each change would make Ouchi feel pain for a long time. As his condition worsened, Ouchi's lungs began to accumulate water and he had difficulty breathing, so doctors used an artificial ventilator to insert a trachea to maintain breathing. This also means that Ouchi is unable to communicate in language.
At the same time, when the doctor examined it, he found that the number of white blood cells in Ouchi's body was only one-tenth of that of normal people, and the situation was very critical. White blood cells act as the "guardian" of the human body. Tasked with defending against and destroying viruses and bacteria. The decrease in white blood cells means that Ouchi is likely to be invaded by other bacterial viruses, and it is no exaggeration to say that a cold at this moment is enough to take Ouchi's life. In order to save their lives, the doctors transferred it to the sterile room, in the face of the continuous reduction of white blood cells, the doctors found Ouchi's sister and successfully matched, began to carry out white blood cell transplantation, but whether the transplanted new cells can maintain the number of white blood cells, it will take more than 10 days to get the results, and the final report shows that the white blood cell transplantation is successful.
However, after a week, due to the excessive radiation dose, Ouchi's own cells gained the ability to transmit radioactive materials, and the transplanted white blood cells did not escape the fate of chromosome destruction. On the 27th day of the accident, just as the doctors were discussing how to increase the number of white blood cells, Ouchi's condition worsened further, and through colonoscopy, it was found that the intestinal mucosa in his body began to fall off, resulting in severe diarrhea. After three weeks, Ouchi's intestines began to bleed, and blood filled the intestines. To ensure that he would not die from excessive blood loss, doctors began replenishing him with blood. Even sometimes in half a day, there are more than a dozen blood transfusions. A lot of bleeding and transfusions caused his heart to face a lot of burden, and he had to maintain a violent heartbeat to allow the blood to be replenished quickly, so that his heart beat more than 120 times per minute, which was equivalent to Ouchi's continuous marathon in his hospital bed.
At the same time, a large area of skin fell off, blood and body fluids began to ooze out in large quantities, and finally the doctor decided to wrap it in a large amount of gauze, and At this moment Ouchi was like a mummy. In response to this situation, the doctor decides on a skin grafting regimen. Unfortunately, Ouchi's skin did not accept foreign skin, and the skin graft could not be attached to Ouchi's body, and the skin graft program failed. On the 59th day of the accident, Ouchi's heart suddenly stopped beating, and the doctor rescued him, and finally the heart resumed beating. But at this moment, Ouchi's brain, lungs and other organs were seriously damaged, and he could not perceive the external response or respond.
On the 65th day of the accident, Ouchi's autoimmune cells began to mutate, attacking other normal cells, and there were fewer and fewer red blood cells, and finally became zero. At this moment, the doctors have been helpless and have come to a dead end. On the 81st day, Dr. Maekawa gathered his family and suggested that he abandon treatment. Two days later, Ouchi finally passed away, free from the torment of pain. At this moment, his body was only left with bones and a layer of gauze wrapped around the outside, like a dry corpse. Another colleague of his was a little further away from the radioactive source, but did not escape the fate of death, dying of multiple organ failure on the 210th day after the accident. As for the other remaining colleague, due to the distance, he survived. This battle against nuclear radiation has made the world realize that the medical technology they are proud of is also powerless in the face of nuclear radiation. This not only brings challenges to human medicine, but also sounds a wake-up call for us to pay attention to standardized operations.
At present, with the development and utilization of nuclear energy, it not only brings new impetus to human development, but also greatly enhances the ability of human beings to understand and transform the world. But at the same time, the development of nuclear energy is also accompanied by security risks and challenges. According to the white paper "China's Nuclear Safety", as of June 2019, China has 142607 emitters in use, 181293 various types of ray devices, and 73,070 units engaged in the production, sale and use of radioisotopes and radiation devices. For these staff, they must operate in accordance with the rules and regulations, do not operate in violation of the law, and conduct regular safety training to improve safety awareness.
In addition, in daily life, we will also suffer from a certain amount of radiation, but the dose is relatively weak, and it is not a threat to the human body at all, such as X-ray examination, CT, chemotherapy and so on. However, the radiation dose that the human body bears is limited, and long-term examination will also have an impact on the human body. In addition, do not touch unidentified objects on the ground.
In 1996, Song Xuewen, the first nuclear radiation patient in China, only suffered a high amputation due to picking up a "chain" and died in 2019. After examination, it was found that this "iron chain" was iridium-192 nuclear radioactive material. In 2014, a Mr. Wang also picked up the "iron chain" made of iridium-192 nuclear radioactive material, which was only exposed to 3 hours, left with a lifelong disability and cost more than 3 million yuan for treatment, and there are many such examples. Therefore, do not easily touch unknown objects on the ground.
Throughout the history of nuclear energy, it is like a sharp "double-edged sword" that is hanging high above human heads. Nuclear energy is cheap and efficient, and as the darling of new energy, it has been promoted on a large scale. But at the same time, frequent nuclear accidents have also caused great harm to the ecology and human beings. The original intention of human beings to use nuclear energy is beautiful, but it is ruthless, if human beings can not effectively control, it will be eaten back to human beings themselves, such as Ouchi Jiu, Song Xuewen, Mr. Wang, people should not only be reduced to painful memories. More importantly, let's rethink how to avoid the harm caused by nuclear radiation while maintaining development.