Anatoli Bugorski might be the luckiest scientist of all time. On July 13, 1978, the Soviet researcher was repairing a particle accelerator intimidatingly named the Synchrotron U-70. As he was repairing a faulty piece of equipment, he made a slip-up worthy of Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor. While poking around the machine, Bugorski stuck his head inside the accelerator and straight into the path of a proton beam.
Made out of hydrogen atoms without electrons, proton beams are often used to obliterate cancer cells, but only in carefully controlled doses—just over five grays (“grays” measure absorbed doses of ionizing radiation) will normally turn humans into irradiated toast. When the beam zapped Bugorski, it measured about 2,000 grays. When it exited near the left side of his nose, it blasted out at 3,000.
As it coursed through his skull, the proton beam burned a hole through Bugorski’s brain. While it was painless, he said he was blinded by a flash “brighter than a thousand suns.” After staggering away from the machine, the left side of his face swelled to enormous proportions. Later, the skin near the entry and exit wounds peeled away, and Bugorski lost hearing in his left ear. However, this Soviet survived his mind-blowing experience, perhaps because the proton beam was moving at nearly the speed of light.
Despite his good luck, Bugorski eventually lost every nerve in the left side of his face, becoming partially paralyzed. The proton beam also damaged Bugorski’s mental capabilities, though not as badly as you might expect. Despite his handicap, Bugorski earned a PhD and is still alive today, proving that it takes a lot more than a proton beam to kill a Russian.
No comments:
Post a Comment