re: #86 wheat-dogg, raker of forests, master of steam

The manager in charge of the night shift (don’t recall the name) was also blind to reality. He had several staff members saying, “Boss, there is something seriously wrong here,” and he kept going on about a relatively minor hydrogen tank explosion, even when it was clear it was something much worse.

More chilling was his sudden presentation of severe radiation sickness in the bunker.

I think Legasov is on record saying that “there is only so much horror the mind can take before it shuts down”, implying it was what happened with the people in charge. Still, Legasov felt that they should be lined up and shot.

Yeah, sudden presentation of radiation sickness is chilling as fuck. There is something which is referred to as “The Walking Ghost Phase” (a.k.a. “latent phase”) of radiation sickness. It is a period of apparent health, lasting for hours or days, following a dose of 10-50 sieverts of radiation. As its name would suggest, the walking ghost phase is followed by certain death. The phase of apparent recovery is due to the lag time of the effects of radiation poisoning to surface. While the irradiation has resulted in bone marrow destruction and death of many rapidly multiplying cells, the surface effects do not become apparent until later.

For example, irradiation kills the rapidly dividing cells of the gastrointestinal tract, however diarrhea is not apparent until the cells begin to slough off, coming out in bloody excrement. Loss of this protective lining exposes the body to bacteria within the gut causing sepsis. Also, this causes an inability to absorb nutrition from food. This is the same with the rapidly proliferating cells of the immune system. Irradiation essentially halts white blood cell production by destroying bone marrow, however the remaining white blood cells within the body are still temporarily working, until they are “used up”.

Basically, you think your pal has survived until he crashes unexpectedly, with bleedings that won’t stop out of every orifice… And people wonder why I harshly give my piece of mind to any RWNJ (it almost invariably is a RWNJ) who goes “Nook ‘em al, let Cod srot dem oot!”