Lethal Exposure by Kevin J. Anderson, Doug Beason Page A
Authors: Kevin J. Anderson, Doug Beason
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do nothing to alleviate the central nervous system damage you received. Your symptoms may include apathy, fatigue, apprehension. You’ll be unsteady, your hands will shake, your ears will ring constantly. As you degenerate, you may suffer from convulsions of increasing severity. I anticipate . . . death will follow from respiratory arrest.
“And even if the radiation injury to your brain isn’t severe enough to kill you, in a few days the damage you received to your immune system and the lining of your intestines will probably make you go into septic shock. When that happens, treating you with powerful antibiotics might keep you alive maybe a day or so longer—but it would just be delaying the inevitable.”
He swallowed hard. “At least my hair won’t fall out.”
“No, that would take a few weeks.” She hesitated. “You won’t last nearly that long.”
When she finished, Trish felt ashamed of what she had done. Instead of telling him in gruesome detail, she should have had a better bedside manner. Dumenco could have been made to feel comfortable and at peace.
At times she let herself get carried away, especially with the Physicians for Responsible Radiation Research, thinking more about abstract social solutions instead of individuals like Dumenco. Sometimes Trish knew she went too far; she acted without thinking, then had to face the consequences.
“How do you know all this information?” he asked. “From test animals?”
“Treatment of radiation exposure is not an exact science. Every case is drastically different,” she said. “We have a lot of general mortality data from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but many of those victims died from flash burns and infections, lack of proper medical treatment—not directly from the radiation. These are more controlled circumstances.” She noticed her voice growing flatter, like a lecturer instead of a compassionate doctor.
“We certainly had enough victims at Chernobyl,” he said.
Trish squeezed his bony shoulder. She had been there too. She had seen the horror in Dumenco’s eyes, the fear for his wife and children, for himself and his beloved Ukraine.
“You received a supralethal exposure, Georg—in the neighborhood of two thousand rads. Orders of magnitude higher than anyone at Chernobyl.”
Dumenco turned his head to look at her expectantly. “So what other cases are relevant? Or is this entirely guesswork?”
Trish turned down another path, past a line of rose bushes. Squirrels crashed through the fallen leaves, searching for acorns and scampering up the rough bark of the oak trees.
“Our best data comes from two accidents at Los Alamos, part of early nuclear weapons work. The first radiation fatality occurred in 1945, two days after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. An experimenter was hand-stacking tungsten-carbide bricks as neutron reflectors around a plutonium sphere, a core for a third atomic bomb just in case Japan didn’t surrender after the first two.” She stared off into the distance. The river seemed so peaceful, the sunset so quiet, the air so fresh.
“He accidentally dropped the last brick on top of the sphere, which made the setup supercritical. He even saw the blue flash of the radiation burst. Even though the man knew he’d been massively exposed, he meticulously unstacked the bricks, put them away, then walked to the hospital and turned himself in, where he died twenty-eight days later. He received about eight hundred rads.”
“Amazing the man could be so calm,” Dumenco said. He coughed, “But then . . . you know us scientists.”
Trish walked slowly, pushing the wheelchair. Other patients and their families were enjoying the night air, though many made their way back inside as it grew cooler.
“The other accident occurred nine months later, in May 1946, when a safety trainer was demonstrating how to perform a critical experiment with a beryllium cap over a plutonium sphere. He used a flat-bladed screwdriver to keep
“And even if the radiation injury to your brain isn’t severe enough to kill you, in a few days the damage you received to your immune system and the lining of your intestines will probably make you go into septic shock. When that happens, treating you with powerful antibiotics might keep you alive maybe a day or so longer—but it would just be delaying the inevitable.”
He swallowed hard. “At least my hair won’t fall out.”
“No, that would take a few weeks.” She hesitated. “You won’t last nearly that long.”
When she finished, Trish felt ashamed of what she had done. Instead of telling him in gruesome detail, she should have had a better bedside manner. Dumenco could have been made to feel comfortable and at peace.
At times she let herself get carried away, especially with the Physicians for Responsible Radiation Research, thinking more about abstract social solutions instead of individuals like Dumenco. Sometimes Trish knew she went too far; she acted without thinking, then had to face the consequences.
“How do you know all this information?” he asked. “From test animals?”
“Treatment of radiation exposure is not an exact science. Every case is drastically different,” she said. “We have a lot of general mortality data from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but many of those victims died from flash burns and infections, lack of proper medical treatment—not directly from the radiation. These are more controlled circumstances.” She noticed her voice growing flatter, like a lecturer instead of a compassionate doctor.
“We certainly had enough victims at Chernobyl,” he said.
Trish squeezed his bony shoulder. She had been there too. She had seen the horror in Dumenco’s eyes, the fear for his wife and children, for himself and his beloved Ukraine.
“You received a supralethal exposure, Georg—in the neighborhood of two thousand rads. Orders of magnitude higher than anyone at Chernobyl.”
Dumenco turned his head to look at her expectantly. “So what other cases are relevant? Or is this entirely guesswork?”
Trish turned down another path, past a line of rose bushes. Squirrels crashed through the fallen leaves, searching for acorns and scampering up the rough bark of the oak trees.
“Our best data comes from two accidents at Los Alamos, part of early nuclear weapons work. The first radiation fatality occurred in 1945, two days after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. An experimenter was hand-stacking tungsten-carbide bricks as neutron reflectors around a plutonium sphere, a core for a third atomic bomb just in case Japan didn’t surrender after the first two.” She stared off into the distance. The river seemed so peaceful, the sunset so quiet, the air so fresh.
“He accidentally dropped the last brick on top of the sphere, which made the setup supercritical. He even saw the blue flash of the radiation burst. Even though the man knew he’d been massively exposed, he meticulously unstacked the bricks, put them away, then walked to the hospital and turned himself in, where he died twenty-eight days later. He received about eight hundred rads.”
“Amazing the man could be so calm,” Dumenco said. He coughed, “But then . . . you know us scientists.”
Trish walked slowly, pushing the wheelchair. Other patients and their families were enjoying the night air, though many made their way back inside as it grew cooler.
“The other accident occurred nine months later, in May 1946, when a safety trainer was demonstrating how to perform a critical experiment with a beryllium cap over a plutonium sphere. He used a flat-bladed screwdriver to keep
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