Although it is not known for sure, it is generally believed that 200,000 to 300,000 glad passed through Bugorsky's head. No human has ever experienced such a powerful stream of radiation. Usually a dose of 400 to 1000 glad is enough to kill a person.
Anatoly Bugorsky not only survived, but also survived the proton accelerator that crippled him.
Anatoly Bugorsky worked with the largest Soviet particle accelerator U-70 at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino, near Serpukhov. On July 13, 1978, temporary failures in the detector system were observed, and it was necessary to go directly to the instruments installed on the path of the particle beam extracted from the accelerator.
1. Section of the U-70 proton synchrotron at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino.
Then it turned out that during the previous experiment, a high beam intensity was not needed, so the automatic door lock was turned off, and then it was not turned on by mistake. The sign on the door did not glow because of a burned out light bulb. In addition, Bugorsky, having called the remote control, said that he would be in the channel in 5 minutes, and he came running, apparently, a little earlier than the operator removed the beam.
As a result of a combination of several fatal accidents, Bugorsky repaired the working accelerator. He stuck his head into the channel through which an extremely powerful beam of protons passed at that moment. As soon as his head crossed the invisible beam of protons, the scientist saw a flash "brighter than a thousand suns", but did not feel pain.
2. Experimental hall of the accelerator, where the accident happened.
Promotional video:
Bugorsky realized that he had been exposed to a proton beam, but that day he did not tell anyone about it. Instead, he completed the work, wrote down the information about his visit to the accelerating channel in a diary, and then began to anticipate the symptoms of radiation sickness with anxious foreboding. At night, the left side of his face began to swell, and after a sleepless night, Bugorsky decided to see a doctor. He was urgently sent to Moscow to the specialized radiological hospital No. 6 (now the A. I. Burnazyan FMBC of the FMBA of Russia).
3. The swollen face of Anatoly Bugorsky after the accident. The picture on the right shows the path of a proton beam through his skull.
Although it is not known for sure, it is generally believed that 200,000 to 300,000 glad passed through Bugorsky's head. No human has ever experienced such a powerful stream of radiation. Usually a dose of 400 to 1000 glad is enough to kill a person.
But Bugorsky survived, because it was a focused beam with a transverse size of 2 × 3 mm.
Unlike Chernobyl or Hiroshima, where the victims were irradiated with high-energy gamma radiation from head to toe, Bugorsky received a point dose with minimal scatter. The beam went through the back of the head and out through the nose. He practically burned a hole in the tissues of his head, but although his brain was damaged and one side of his face was paralyzed, vital organs such as the bone marrow and gastrointestinal tract were not exposed to the lethal radiation. The scars on the back of his head and face healed over time, but the left side of his face remained paralyzed and he lost his hearing in his left ear. There was a period when epileptic seizures became more frequent, even with loss of consciousness, but his intellect did not suffer.
Anatoly returned to work after 18 months, but twice a year he came to Moscow for examinations. He continued to engage in science, defended his Ph. D. thesis and held the position of coordinator of physics experiments at the U-70 proton synchrotron, where the incident occurred. Due to the Soviet Union's policy of maintaining secrecy in matters related to nuclear energy, Bugorsky did not divulge the details of the accident for more than ten years, his story became known only after the Chernobyl disaster.
4. Anatoly Bugorsky.
Anatoly Bugorsky not only survived, but also survived the proton accelerator that crippled him. The collapse of the Soviet Union and economic changes in the country led to the curtailment of state funding, the project was stopped and ultimately abandoned. Bugorsky still lives in Protvino, now he is 78. He hardly pays for the treatment of epilepsy. In 1996, he applied for an increase in the disability group, but he was rejected.