A man suffered the most painful death ever recorded in human history after doctors kept him alive for 83 days.
Hisashi Ouchi suffered horrifying injuries as a result of the 1999 nuclear disaster in Japan, leaving him ‘crying blood’ and his skin ‘melting’.
Flashback to September 1999 and it was Ouchi who was responsible for purifying uranium oxide at Tokaimura’s nuclear fuel-processing plant for the purpose of producing fuel rods for a research reactor.
A regular day at work quickly turned into anything but as onlookers described the ‘most painful death imaginable’.
Ouchi and two co-workers accidentally triggered the release of radiation from an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction, causing unimaginable destruction.
He suffered the most painful death (Public Domain)
The workers had planned to pour uranium into a huge metal vat, with Ouchi helping a colleague with the dangerous task.
But after a deadly and destructive miscalculation, the harmful liquid reached a ‘critical point’, and it was Ouchi who 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 – four times 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, workers caught in Chernobyl’s explosion back in 1986 were exposed to just 0.25 sv.
Ouchi was immediately transported the University of Tokyo Hospital, where he was diagnosed with severely depleted white blood cells, and requiring extensive skin grafts and multiple blood transfusions.
The disaster sent shockwaves across the world (Public Domain)
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.
Despite all this doctors managed to keep Ouchi alive, even resuscitating following heart failure.
On day 83, Ouchi’s body finally gave out and he died as a result of multiple organ failure, after suffering in unfathomable pain for just under three months.
