The Lia Radiological Accident - Nuclear Bonfire
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- Опубликовано: 17 май 2024
- On a snowy day in 2001, three men from Lia, Georgia stumbled across two metal cylinders. The ground was steaming beneath them. It would take the work of over 50 people and two years of intensive hospital treatment before the radiological incident was finally over.
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*Thanks for watching.* I'm constantly trying to improve the [HLH] series, and I hope this lesser known but still amazing story doesn't disappoint. I'll be focusing more on these stories this year.
Great video so far! Keep up the good work, love to listen while I do homework, or just watch them generally. Thanks for all the effort put into these
Realy love the hlh series, waiting for the next one!
Love the series! It is not only a grim reminder of how dangerous nuclear material is, but also what it is able to achieve if documented and disposed of properly.
This is amazing
The serious tone and style of editing is brilliant and something I always look forward to watching and listening to. Awesome series, and awesome video my dude.
“And they found another 300 of them” That is probably one of the scariest things said in this series. 300 of these things just out in the Georgian wild…
Imagine how many of them are in the ex USSR territory.
Not those RtG:s, there is only two missing in wild, as it was stated in video. Those 300 was about orphan sources in general.
@@MeltedMask Was referring to Orphan Sources when I said that, sorry for the confusion.
@@thecityissleeping edit: ah damn, I should watch the whole vid first, now i'm redundant... /e
the ussr built a bunch of automated arctic lighthouses with rtg's. A significant percentage of those lighthouses are lost- noone even knows where they were built any longer.
Their rtg's are lost, too.
(no sources, look it up yourself if you want more than my spotty memory 😅)
The discovery and retrieval of this sources defiinenly needs its own video
"using these curious objects as heaters"
Rule #1 of physics: if it emits energy for free, you don't want to find out the price.
Jeez. Good i dont go out in the sun too often.
@@bzqp2true. Melanoma is no joke.
rule #1 of human survival instinct... if it appears to be unnatural, it'll probably kill you.
@@bzqp2
I cover up all skin when out in the sun, even a light fabric will do the job to prevent tons of radiation from damaging your cells
@@bzqp2 Sunlight can indeed cause cancer and it will destroy the Earth in a few billion years.
Nuclear batteries are terrifying, but the idea of having a self-contained power source that can last decades without any moving parts is hard to ignore.
They aren’t terrifying if handled correctly, like in Soviet lighthouses for decades.
Obviously if you abandon it it becomes dangerous, that’s like 90% of volatile materials.
@@yourfriend8052 While they can be useful and safe if handled correctly, that doesn't stop them from being terrifying to think about.
kinda meh in my opinion, I think there is a better alternative, a variable power rtg that changes neutron flux over time, with a isotope that decays at the same rate the nuclear fuel is decaying creating more moderation, increasing the flux, so a stable energy output is expected. In normal rtgs energy output decays and nuclear fuel isnt used to the maximum
I find the thought of the sun and its fission and fusion terrifying. I wish it didn’t exist so close!🤔😉
@@1998diegox cool story nerd
The fact that these dangerous, radioactive artifacts from a bygone age exist and are just scattered throughout Georgia is insane to me. It’s like something out of a Tolkien novel or a Fallout game.
Almost Lovecraftian. They're such a perfect model of a cursed artifact, I almost wish people were a little more superstitious just so they'd be more reluctant to mess around with stuff they don't understand.
This is literally a nuclear battery from Fallout
A lot of post Soviet states have installations that are basically lost to history, I am surprised that this was the only incident
@@eyesofthecervino3366 Even in history there were people who would visit places and objects that were "cursed". And they often died horribly for their trouble.
These RTGs were also used extensively along the north coast of Russia, to power unmanned lighthouses warding ships away from shore (remember, no GPS back then). A lot of those were also hit by looters after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
half life histories is easily my favorite series, nuclear science and history is really neat
Straight up facts^^
1000% agree. Most of the stories have some sort of sad element but they show that Radiation ain't nothin to f$%k with.
favorite series period. All of Kyle’s content. All of RUclips for that matter. A true masterwork.
SAME. Kyle has me so addicted to learning about it. Such a cool guy.
Half life is easily my favourite game series, nuclear science and crowbar is really neat ..... sorry😅
This is a tragedy but NUCLEAR BONFIRE IS SO METAL
@Don't Read My Profile Picture deez
New Band name
@@thejuggernautofspades9453 YES
Name of the raddest punk rock album never released
Sounds like a metal band
I hope the people that risk their lives to remove fatal radiation sources are hailed as hero's. It takes a lot to be someone that would run towards danger instead of away from it. They're heroes in my book at least, up there with firefighters and EMT's.
They definitely need to be paid more, no doubt they got paid pennies compared to the danger they put themselves in. They're not just risking death, they're risking a slow and painful death. They're absolutely heroes.
To save lives without regard for one’s own.
@@dsandoval9396 Definitely. And it's also a prime example of how to do risk management right, with how they took the information available into account to calculate a maximum time limit each worker may participate, and as you see they adhere to it so strictly that when they reach that limit, they drop everything and run.
The sucky part is, that nobody knows about this situation. And nobody knows their names:( so no. They're not seen as heroes. And its a shame
I’m not sure the cleanup crew were volunteers. Wait, did they just say the training was critical?……lol
Working in the army, I had a hard time making privates understand the difference between a nuclear threat (due to the use of a nuclear weapon or an explosion coming from a nuclear reaction) and a radiological one (when exposed to radioactive material) when doing CBRN training. Thanks to your videos about orphan sources it gives me several examples to illustrate what’s a radiological threat and how not so uncommon it could be in our line of work after all. Thank you so much Kyle as your work definitely help us have a better understanding and awareness about these subjects.
I’m really sorry to ask but could you explain the difference to me? I can understand if you’re tired of explaining it though haha
@@languid-4535 Well, as we need to be able to protect ourselves from CBRN (Chemical, Bacteriological, Radioactive, Nuclear) hazards we need to know what are them. The nuclear hazard is essentially caused by the detonation of a nuclear weapon, and it can leads obviously to the radioactive hazard. On the other hand the radioactive hazard is caused by the exposition to radioactive material.
So what I often try to explain is that when we’re talking nuclear, we’re trying to protect ourselves from the effect of a nuclear explosion as it happens (the mechanical effects, thermal effects, EMPs,…)
The radioactive part in CBRN is protecting ourselves from the exposure to ionizing radiation coming from either radioactive material just like orphan sources or caused by the fallout of a nuclear explosion.
@@ENGR889 thank you so much!!
I Must ask what is the difference I am a probationary FF and looking to do Hazmat and want to know as much as possible
@@bloodravensterminator8594 I’ve explained it in one of my reply. Let me sum it up for you:
Nuclear hazard it’s when a nuclear explosion is happening and you need to protect yourself from the immediate effect of it.
On the other hand the radioactive hazard is related to the exposure of radioactive material (from orphan sources for example, or the by product coming from a nuclear explosion).
The subtlety of these two is that in a way they are related so you can confuse them.
I love how you don't sensationalize these stories. It's already interesting enough without overblown or manufactured drama, and I appreciate the seriousness of your presentation. Orphan sources definitely are frightening enough on their own.
Thank you. It's a very deliberate choice to change my presentation and voice for these more serious stories. They don't need to be dramatized. And people dying doesn't need a RUclipsr thumbnail.
@@kylehill I've heard from other people who also watch but may not comment that they really appreciate the same thing. Thanks for replying!
But did patient 2s wife hold hands with the nuclear device, behind her husbands back, and is she now pregnant with it's baby, like Samantha said? Find out more after these messages!
As long as the yt board doesn't hit you with the "No PAY" or "COPYWRONG" stick, this series will continue, not just for love but also on generation mentality. Something sadly corporations already have beachhead on and will immediately shoot regardless of friend or foe.
@@kylehill I appreciate how you present these stories. It’s not a war so there is no grandeur, it’s almost like a psa that though nuclear is powerful and safe if handled responsibly it’s also a serious and dangerous situation if those responsibilities are voided. You don’t pick sides when telling these stories you don’t call out incompetency or anything like that, you tell exactly what happened as if reading from a transcript and you explain the details of the consequences of mishandling these very serious tools.
This'll probably get buried, but I jsut wanted to say that this series, as well as the other Nuclear power and technology videos from this channel have inspired me to major in Nuclear Engineering! I've recently been accepted to NC State (one of the few universities which offer Nuclear) and I can't wait to get started this fall. Thank you Kyle
I'm so proud of you William. I'm honored and humbled to be a small part of your educational journey. Study hard! Stay nerdy.
Im not advocating much, but the US navy sub force is entirely nuclear and will train you as well, not to mention pay for your college, but a single enlistment (5 years) as a nuc (nuclear trained person) will land a job at just about any nuclear power plant.
Hey William! I'm a second year Chemical Engineer an NC State who's taken some nuclear classes for fun. Reach out if you want! I can connect you to some good resources in the Nuclear Department or if you just want to chat about State. Congrats on your accpetance!
Good for you! Best of luck in your studies.
Congrats!
"Using these curious objects as personal heaters"
NOOOOOOOO!! Jesus Christ, that is horrifying!!
The fact that the mission to recover the rtgs allotted 40 seconds per team member's exposure compared to the fact that those men were in closer proximity to it than those tools enabled the mission to handle them for HOURS on end is terrifying as hell.
It must have been so strange to find something so alien, a cylinder that outputs heat with no explanation, and then to be told afterwards it was slowly killing you without you even noticing. Radiation is amazing but also terrifying.
Yeah if you ever find metal or rock that feels warm without reasonable explanation. Drop that crap.
@@wonder_platypus8337 That's terrible advice. I would recommend rubbing it on your testicles.
@@wonder_platypus8337hell don't even pick it up and stay the fuck away from it
Drop it in your vodka for real Fire Water
@@wonder_platypus8337 Yeah kinda a shame we don't at least teach that at minimum in schools. Instead understanding of radiation is something you only learn on your own or in university, and those people are far less likely to be fiddling around with a metal bucket they find in the woods.
Remember everyone, if you find something in the woods, producing heat, and it's not connected to anything... Avoid it! I'm glad you covered this accident. I feel like it wasn't well known. I remember learning about it from Plainly Difficult.
Also, mark the area and notify authorities without approaching it.
Ah yes, Plainly Difficult. A man who taught me Britain almost beat the Soviets to the first Chernobyl…except some mad lad climbed up a coolant stack to manually aim a hose pipe down it.
They don’t make Brits like they used too lol.
@@KingOhmni Could you link that video or post the title so I can give it a watch?
@@byronbass3014 The incident was called the Windscale Fire
Could be worse ... could be a tall black monolith!
I am from Georgia and this is the first time hearing about this disaster. Almost no one knows this story in these kind of details here, no one knows the names of those brave workers who risked their lives for saving other. Thank you Kyle Hill for this amazing piece of my country's history, i will research more about those brave men.
What irks me is these men were not the first to discover these sources. They found them naked, unshielded, not near an old military base or something like that. Some poor soul or souls exposed them, and then probably quietly died without any formal investigation.
I'm just stunned. So many of these stories start with people seeing clearly radioactive stuff and being like "this is totally normal."
Then I remember what computers and the internet were like in 2001. We seriously take the amount of information available to us for granted.
"Clearly radioactive" can mean many different things, depending on how much someone knows about radioactivity.
Well, you have to put into account that they were mostly found by people with low degree of education or just common people who didn't know what they had found and didn't know how to deal with it.
Knowing how desperate in the cold and dark and unknowledgable they were in terms of anything radioactive, this was unfortunate yet inevitable at the time
@@YavorM-Yash They are, that's what the entirety of the bottom of their comment is.
I think we have the benefit of hindsight here. I doubt anyone expects to ever encounter an orphan source in their life and because of that they may not connect the dots in time, even if they know about radiation.
I just can't help to feel sadness. No one deserves two excruciating years fighting radiation burns just because they wanted to stay warm after an exhausting day of gathering wood.
Kudos to you for showing the horrible wounds that the radiation exposure gave the men. Too many channels blur that kind of thing, and I get why... RUclips doesn’t want to pay people for showing gore. But people need to see how incredibly terrifying this is, because just saying “these guys you’ve known for about five minutes... died horribly” Doesn’t have as much of an effect as seeing the actual results would.
Don’t try it, fake Kyle Hill
I have a strong stomach, but that last image of the burn on the back of the guy who died nearly made me lose my lunch
Well said...some ppl have no life and small 🍆
@@haunteddestiny312 ?
@@blindmansstaff6416 a fake Kyle hill prize bot commented, reply has been deleted
Calling them "orphan sources" makes it seem like if you ever find one lost and alone, they need to be held close and cuddled.
They should be called "Demon Sources" to convey their danger.
imagine having the balls to use strontium-90 as a heater
I love hearing about these because it shows both how dangerous radiation and working with nuclear material can be. But also show why it’s extremely important that we know how to properly handle said nuclear material in order to avoid any such tragedy.
Nice to know the Russians leave lots of radiation easter eggs - surprise comrad
I think it's a sign of why some basic understanding of radiation should be taught in school. People just see a metal bucket making heat and think it's a good idea to use it. Radiation is so poorly understood by the average person that there was literally that case people played with glowing blue powder because it looked pretty. I really think at least the basics should be taught that if it glows in the dark, if it emits heat from seemingly nowhere, and you don't know what it is, stay away from it.
Right now the understanding people have on radiation is "that bad" and it kinda ends there. It takes understanding to prevent a disaster, and the problem is it's a topic only explained to those who go to university, and those are unlikely to be the people accidently finding and playing with radiation sources.
modern phones should have radiation detectors, so this never happen to another human by mistake again
@@monad_tcp Yeah unless you make a phone 5 bigger in volume that any current smartphone to accommodate all necessary electronics for the rad scan funcionality...
@@monad_tcp even some tiny device that can detect only huge jumps in radiation would do, really.
I love how effectively the recovery crew was working while also having a little bit of fun with it and cheering each other on. Almost looked like a team building game.
Those guys deserve a lot of respect.I don’t think I’d have the cojones to do that regardless of safety measures.
That's the Human way, man! We just a bunch of clever apes that love socializing riding the high of gamebreaking intelligence to its assorted conclusions. When we solve practical problems as a moderately large group we tend to be at our happiest, because that's literally what our instincts evolved to do.
Makes me want to see a collapsed civilization/postapocalypse story with a throwaway shot of kids playing games like this.
@@IronianKnight Nah
Speak for yourself , a lot of people including myself don't see ourselves as a cleaver ape's , we are Human
@@Dracula.25 Impressive detachment, my friend!
It's scary to think about how these things are just forgotten about and just left around. It's like finding a real life cursed object.
Reminds me of a post apocalyptic story I listened to recently that involed a tangent about a "Warming Rock" that travelers would sleep next to. It's implied that conditions are harsh enough that no one has connected this lump of warm rock to any excess deaths.
What's the name 👀
Come on, no title?
Let's face it: Kyle is one of the best educators on RUclips for everything nuclear. This whole series has been amazing to watch, just the facts without stigma or overdramatism. The calm & professional & understandable presentation from Kyle is just outstanding! This makes the last sentence of this video so much more impactful - I had chills running down my spine...👀
Kyle is one of the most well educated and well *educating* and entertaining YTP out there, not to mention his excellent articulation and he's an aries so he's fire and he's hardheaded AND he's got "the autistic vigor," which is more of a huge benefit than the curse a lot of us think we have.
THANKS for saying 💯
I wish I could like this comment more
Absolute props to the recovery team and their professionalism.
well, considering what they were dealing with, i would not expect less. still great job at dealing with something I'd avoid entirely.
Their professionalism, and the amount of balls the operation took. I can't imagine the line for doing this job was very long.
It shows that its not always the equipment that matters its the brains that matter.
@@themenacingpenguin.7152 It probably helped that they had the equipment they needed to do their job safely.
@@shadowldrago well i mean the quality of the equipment, it does look rather simple and i wouldn't trust it but it gets the good enough seal of approval which means I approve it.
Those two men. Their back. That was just terrible! I couldn't imagine what the pain must have felt like. The worst pain I've ever felt is when I have my kidney stones and when I had my heart attack. Oh. Not at the same time.
Wouldn't the pain-sensing nerve cells also be dead?
@@tsovloj6510 I was referencing after the event.
@@tsovloj6510human beings aren’t that lucky to be intelligently designed.
@@Puppy_Puppingtonif their pain sensing nerves were gone it would be a lot worse because they’d have no idea their body was decaying.
@@James-il1znexactly, theres a premise on house md where a girl who cant feel pain has a tapeworm killing her and she doesnt know
RIP to the victim and the two other men who were burned by these orphan sources, and much respect to the recovery crew in the video for carrying out an efficient and safe cleanup mission.
Such a shame the community captions feature has been shut down. I would have loved contributing to this series with a full transcript and French subtitles! The Half Life Histories should be able to touch everyone regardless of their preferred language.
"Should"? This is free content. You are free to make requests but no one is obligated to provide anything for free
@@NadiaSeesIt I am not saying Kyle ought to put the time and money, only that I think it's a shame if a series of such quality and public importance were to be locked behind a language barrier. Mostly I mourn the ability for mere viewers like us to contribute freely to such projects as captioning in different languages, and given the opportunity, I would be happy to volunteer my own time for part of it!
@@NadiaSeesIt Why are you being obtuse? All they said is that its a shame that community captions arent a thing so everyone is able to enjoy this educational content
@@NadiaSeesIt Ok peko
@@felixmervamee7834 at least there is auto tranlated subs not the best but good youtube has them
even knowing how incredibly unlikely it is, one of my biggest fears is getting irradiated just under the amount that would be immediately fatal. after all the stories of people suffering from the after effects, it's seared into my mind that that's the way i would least like to go out. because even if you survive the initial event, there's no guarantee that surviving is even going to be a good thing for you.
Absolutely it would be one of the worst ways to go. Your body is almost burning from the inside out and the risk of cancer, blood changes, future sickness is so high that each year would be a roulette of survival and pain
@Druid of Scosglen the guy in SG1 was Daniel but the incidence is basically modeled after the Slotin accident. Slotin recieved a higher dose (21 Sv) than even Hisashi Ouchi (17 Sv) and that one already fell appart while still technically alive but was kept alive for 83 days even tho there was no way he could survive
I read Sadako and the thousand paper cranes as a youngin and it was very scary. I agree that it's a hard fear to handle, but I've done a lot of research on how to avoid/minimize. Scary stuff!
Strangely enough your comment reminded me of something my dad told me many years ago. He said he'd want to be right in the kill zone in case of a nuclear event, or far enough away that it wouldn't have much effect. He did talk about distances but it's too early in the morning for my brain to function. I thought he was crazy at the time, but seeing these videos and the pain people endure I think he was probably on the right path with his thoughts on it.
@@alfonzo7822 That's exactly why I tell people who "don't want to survive nuclear war" that should the nightmare scenario occur, they should absolutely take shelter anyway. Once the immediate radiological hazards are over, they should then go find a gun or other means and end it that way.
We're not certain enough of the accuracy and aim points to be sure of where ground zero will be (so there is no way to insure that one will be incinerated -- not even on a military base or in a major city), and the zone of immediate death is smaller than people imagine it to be. Exposing oneself to a nuclear blast is more likely to result in the horrible, lingering, death that no one wants than in a quick end.
The full source recovery video from IAEA is an instructional gem. TDS rules well explained, gamma detection, inverse square law. All there.
"And they found another 300 of them”. Oh my goodness that is terrifying! Those poor people! Such reckless endangerment.
I find it terrifying how extremely dangerous radiation sources and nuclear devices can apparently just go missing like that
Happens when a country collapses
And just imagine- it seems like we as a species have less and less appreciation for our jobs as the years go on. And we trust emotional human beings with all of our nuclear technology. At any given time, if certain people felt slighted enough, all they’d have to do is throw a monkey wrench in the system and blow up the factory they work at. I appreciate what nuclear energy can do for us………. But man, humans should not be trusted with it…… Look at Chernobyl. 😐
Just don't mix soviets with atoms
@@kenetickups6146 and when they lied about the amount they had to begin with
"missing" or strategically hidden away for later use, then forgotten about / lost to time and secrecy
The fact that there are currently 17 of these videos with likely enough content for who knows how many more is terrifying. And each one of these videos is terrifying on it's own
Edit: Adding more to this; I used to work in a nuclear decontamination facility that cleaned uniforms and other equipment from powerplants along the east coast. We helped in the cleanup of TMI as it was shutting down. We were never exposed to amounts of radiation even close to normal background radiation, but TDS and ALARA were drummed into us from day 1. That job has given me a fascination with all things nuclear, and a thorough understanding of just how dangerous radiation can be. Each and every one of these videos is chilling to watch for that reason, but a healthy amount of fear for arguably the most dangerous materials on the planet is the most healthy attitude to take.
I’m more concerned about chemical hazards tbh. Radiological ones like these can be mitigated with rudimentary education of what radioactivity is and looks like when it’s _this_ dangerous. It’s also very easy to detect; anyone can use a radiation meter and know to walk away when it starts making angry noises.
Chemical contaminants can go undetected and often need a lab and chemistry degree to detect and identify.
The Soviets were absolutely insane when it came to radioactive hazards, but that's not a common attitude around the globe, thankfully. Even the Russians are far more careful with radioactive hazards when compared to the Soviets.
EOD techs say that the day you AREN'T scared of going to work is the day you have to retire because if you don't do it voluntarily, you'll do it involuntarily. Better to be scared of a thing than let it kill you.
i could be 100% wrong but i feel like chemicals are also harder to clean up than an orphan source or something like this.
What I've learned from studying nuclear energy (both physics and history), is that radiation is nowhere near as dangerous as the media presents it. If you follow a few basic rules, it's safer than many things we routinely do in our everyday life. Like driving. Even if you drive responsibly, other drives can still kill you, while a radioactive source won't. And if you drive irresponsibly, you are far more likely to die in an accident than from exposure to high levels of radiation.
Take this story for example. Those men spent an entire night with their backs directly touching the RTGs to get a lethal dose. Knowing nothing more than highschool physics and the fact those men got to the hospital alive, I wouldn't have been too afraid of those cylinders. The hard part of the recovery was the weight, not the radiation.
"So the good news is that you kept warm during the night."
.... *what's the bad news?... ... why are you looking at me like that?*
Can we just appreciate the IAEA for taking videos of everything
always a good sign when there’s random metal cylinders that are inexplicably warm
Another one is "orphaned" every DAY? Did I hear that correctly‽‽ That's insane - and insanely frightening! 😳
Thank you, Kyle, for these. You do them so well! You inform, and are very careful to be as respectful as possible, too, and that is commendable.
❤️❤️
I’d say many of the orphaned sources are probably Ge68 which has a half life of 271 days. They are used for calibrating some medial imaging scanners and are usually no more than 5-10 millicuries when new. They are usually replaced when they are below 1 millicurie.
They might actually also consider undisposed smoke detectors to be orphan sources. These are pretty common and not THAT dangerous.
The clean up crew is made up of some of the bravest men I can imagine, its like being a fire fighter, but the fire is completely invisible, and will kill or maim you just by being near it. I can almost guarantee that if you ask them about it in a bar they would just shrug and say it wasn't too bad, but would then give you a death stare if you suggested it was easy work.
from the video these guys clearly knew exactly what they were doing and would know exactly what to expect and the associated risks. their 40 second hard limit on time was probably the absolute minimum they could do while being able to do anything at all and their prep was clearly very well rehearsed. with all those precautions in place, its not a scary I think as being faced with a burning building but still the invisible nature of it is just something us humans find very unsettling
This all happened in my own country and I never knew or heard anything like this until I watched this video and my parents who are 50+ years old didn't know either and they were shocked,This video is pure gold for me, btw where did you find this video footage because its really impressive i appreciate your effort on making this video a lot.
That’s the thing I appreciate about Kyle the most is he truly researches each video to the highest standard! Never puts out content he doesn’t understand
zd same
@@mizzshortie907 Never.
@@kylehill Never.
You are genuinely one of the best channels I have found. I love your content way too much, and always enjoy the videos. Have a good day!
@@mizzshortie907 I appreciate Kyle as well, but honestly it doesn't take much research to present this story. It's on Wikipedia, the IAEA report is linked on Wikipedia, and the video of the recovery is floating around on RUclips, so it doesn't take much research aside from what me or you could do in a hour or so.
I had previously read the IAEA report but had never seen the video of the recovery. Fascinating to watch - thanks for sharing that.
Me either! When I found it I was really excited
great story . it is scary that so many orfren sources just laying around. I go camping and hiking. Even in the US this happens. stories like this helps to warn us what to look out for. I feel radiation should be understood and not feared . I got a geiger counter i take with me on tripps. not just for safety. old clocks and old green glass ETC can be found all over in stores.
One of the only orphan sources I have found are dumped smoke detectors.
it seems a great idea to bring a geiger counter- however, uranium/vasoline glass is largely safe and you don't have to be too afraid of it :)
Uranium glass is largely safe, just don't break it or drink from it. The clocks though? 🫠
Orphan *
@@rosehirstius Uranium glass is, under certain precautions, even safe to drink from. You must make sure that there are no visible cracks or signs of abrasion. In short, you're fine as long as you don't swallow or breathe in particles of glass.
Recently, an orphanage source incident took place in Thailand. The material was melted into metal dust, with no way of knowing how much of the surrounding area was contaminated. The scariest part is that we don't know if the one that was melted is the same as the one that was lost.
Since the first video I saw a while back, this series became my favorite amongst them all! I got a suggestion for a future episode; the Kramatorsk incident, where a tiny vial containing caesium 137 from a radiation level gauge got lost in a quarry and ended in an apartment’s wall ten years after it got lost. In this way, it gave fatal doses to several people and injured many more
Dang, im gonna look more into that. Hope Kyle sees your suggestion!
@KyleHill
Bruuuuuuuuuuuuh
How?😮
How the FUCK?! Inside a wall?! Dude…
Kyle please never stop your HLH series. Its so informative, educational, and is the perfect thing to listen to when you want to unwind during a long day of stress. Keep doing what you do, as I know HLH has helped me understand so much more about nuclear energy, the reason it can be good, and what we have to do to prevent it from being bad.
Good to see this kind of awareness being spread out. I live only 170km from Goiânia (the place of the other radiological accident you've mentioned) and even i, with the increased awareness one would imagine me to have, still didn't know about this heat sources. First time i even thought about the concept was watching the movie The Martian ffs! Didn't think they were this "common" on earth as well.
The Soviet ones were Sr90 which emit beta particles vs the Martian was Pu238 which emits alpha particles. Alphas are easily stopped by a piece of paper where betas require more shielding.
As an instructor that teaches industrial radiography and radiation safety your addition of the T.D.S and ALARA were just 🤌 I loved it. What the recovery crew did is what's called a PSE or Planned Special Exposure. EVERYTHING would have been calculated, they even had extra people if they needed more time. Great video!!!
they planed and exoculated the retrieval perfectly and the total dosage was so minimal. truly amazing!
I love reading comments like these after the video ends.
I love how you highlighted that dealing with these orphan sources the right way doesn't have to be costly or requires scifi level material, but it does take knowing what you are handling and what to do about it. All in all it seems to me that these sources could have been much more lethal, fortunately they weren't.
As someone that LOVES watching documentary videos on nuclear topics, I have to say that your videos are some of the best. Very informative, well edited, well scripted, and the research is basically flawless.
So, I guess I just wanted to say thanks for being one of the better youtube channels. I happily turn off my adblocker for your videos, which should be shown in schools before diving further into the physics and physiology behind everything. I guarantee students would be more interested if that happened. Well done.
There was the story about the killer house where a family mysteriously started to die one by one. Yep you may have guessed it, they build some radiation material into the structure of the house that slowly exposed the family.
I think there’s something in the human psyche that is both terrified and curiously attracted to things that are highly dangerous. You often see it in small children where they get spooked by something and then inexplicably will turn around after running a bit to see what it was that scared them.
I was once in a tree stand hog hunting in Florida and I heard rustling in the foliage below me. It was an armadillo and I watched it for about a minute when I noticed movement out of the bottom corner of my left eye. When I looked in the direction of the movement I saw not one but two very large Bob cats, both of them staring at the armadillo as he noisily went about his business. I had heard of bobcats climbing trees to attack hunters before so I aimed my rifle at the front cat and flicked off the safety just in case. The front cat looked up directly at me and we locked eyes for what seemed like an eternity. I didn’t shoot. The cat cocked its head slightly and chirped at me and sat down, the other cat looking at the first cat as though it was wondering what was going on. I continued to look into the first cats eyes and I feel that for that moment that felt like an eternity he was intensely curious as to what I was and why I was so high up from him. Likewise I felt this urge to pet him like I would any other cat even though I knew that the bobcat could easily kill me without breaking a sweat. It was then my phone started ringing and I was snapped back into the moment and the cat I think realized what I was and hissed making his escape with the other cat following close behind.
When I watch videos like this on nuclear disasters I sometimes wonder why people do the things they do, and then I remember that time in the tree stand and I realize even when we don’t know for sure it will cause harm or outright kill us, we humans are intensely curious of our surroundings.
This is a beautiful comment. Glad you and the bobcats were able to come to an understanding, too many people kill them out of immediate fear. They're really interesting, beautiful critters.
@@radishfest Maybe should be most glad for whomever made the call.🙂
Well it's like when you go out to eat wanting to get a nice burger then you look at the menu and see a beautiful steak. The armadillo was the burger and you were the steak. But someone called and it ruined their date night.
i am definitely integrating that into an npc childhood for my cthulu mythos ttrpg this sound like you answered the call of the abyss
A bobcat? 😂
Thank you Kyle for always going above and beyond with these stories. You are awesome
Respect to those workers removing the orphan sources, they knew what they were doing was dangerous but did it anyway.
Kyle, this Half-Life series is simply outstanding. It shows how nuclear energy can be useful if, if it used with the proper precautions and strict adherence to saftey protocol, as well as the dangers of sloppy handling. Thank you for your hard work of research, recording, editing etc.
I knew the general story and that there had been an IAEA-assisted recovery, but I hadn't seen the footage of the recovery operation before. That is an impressive bit of choreographed work to get everything done that fast, with that little exposure per person.
"And they found another 300 of them." THAT IS TOO GODDAMN MANY WHAT THE BLEEP.
yeah, its pretty obvious that this type of stuff needs to be registered and tracked.
Right??
kyle, i’ve been watching your videos for awhile now and i’ve gotta say the attention to detail, the time you take to explain how lethal radiation is after being too exposed to it, and the effort you put in to make your videos interesting is just phenomenal. I am truly thankful for creator like you that keeps that platform alive❤️
So if something I find is mysteriously warm for no obvious reason, stay the hell away from it. Got it.
I remember hearing about this! Though it was presented more as conspiracy than actual news
As it often is.
It's interesting how more and more conspiracy stuff is actually turning out true, example the varus came from a lab that had/has ties to fauci
What new?
That's kinda how I initially heard about it, and I thought it was just old Cold War conspiracy theory leftovers. Then I found out that it was real, but not a whole lot of details beyond the discovery and recovery.
@@DaellusKnights what you need to realise is that cold war fossils are the ones in charge of most of the west and they still think in that cold war fossil's idealogical thoughts and any information received is heavily edited to suit those fossils agenda
I love this series, Kyle speaking calmly and seriously. The ambiance, everything. I only wish there were more episodes
I know it's been said. But this series is.. phenomenal, some of the best content on RUclips in how it's edited and delivered. Genuine respect and keep em coming!
What a fantastic job the recovery team did, just shows how careful planning and knowledge of what you’re dealing with keeps everyone safe was awesome actually getting to see the footage of the training and execution of the plan.
I loved your discussion of TDS and ALARA in this video. I’m a Radiographer in a public hospital, I expose hundreds of people every week to x-ray radiation. TDS and ALARA are the cornerstones of our practice; drilled into us from our earliest University days. And for good reason.
Awesome video, love this series!
How to airplane pilots and crew deal with it?
@@dubstepXpower Pilots and flight attendants are subject to mandatory monitoring if they are likely to receive an effective dose of more than 1 millisievert within a calendar year due to cosmic radiation during flights.
That's so cool! I had looked into that as a career but it wasn't financially viable for me. I've broken a few bones and getting to see x-rays of myself was always so exciting, and some of the better x-rays allowed me to see a previous fracture from several years before next to the most recent one.
I had one nurse practitioner who told me a toe I was concerned about looked fine after barely visually examining it even though I told him the shape was off and I'd been experiencing pain since the time I'd injured it about a month earlier. I went for a second opinion and the NP I saw then agreed that the injured toe looked different from the other one and sent me to get an x-ray. The radiographer was kind enough to let me come look at the x-rays he took when I mentioned how interesting I find them and they were the most beautiful x-rays I've ever seen, the contrast and exposure were perfect and you could clearly see the small piece of bone that was just kind of floating due to the avulsion fracture I was diagnosed with. I know the legally radiographers can't give a diagnosis, but I also know that they're pretty good at knowing what they're looking at since their whole job revolves around getting the best imaging possible for diagnoses. When I went back for my next visit with the first NP and I told him that he had been wrong and my toe was broken as well as how excited I was to be shown the x-ray and what great quality it was, the NP asked if the radiographer told me it was an avulsion fracture because he was only looking at the most recent image where it looked like the bones had rejoined and refused to look at the original image even though he could easily access it in his system. I understand the reason why a practitioner would want to clarify who made the diagnosis but I was still offended on behalf of the guy who took that x-ray and pissed off that this nurse practitioner was trying to gaslight me. I'd been going to appointments to track progress on another fracture that had delayed healing but I was so mad after that last appointment that I just never went back.
TL;DR: X-rays and the people who image them are cool and so is seeing your bones.
watching those man work to recover the object was like magic
what they did may not seem impressive but the stakes was extremely high
it gave me chills of joy as you revealed that those men did an excellent job
It's extremely impressive, given the unbelievable danger of the material they're in the process of handling. It's one thing to train for it, another entirely to be out there in the field and see the radioactive material literally melting snow in the environment. To be able to stand up and just go out and do that is fascinating, and legitimately heroic.
the way this man tells the stories is amazing. i love listening to this like a podcast to relax or just to know new stuff about the things that interest me
I always have so much appreciation for the amount of respect Kyle has when he covers these stories. I see other youtubers who cover these stories not take as much care when discussing them, almost as if they dont see these stories as serious and real things that actually happened, some of them even painting them out to be like horror stories (one that comes to mind is a video on hisachi ouchi, the youtuber who made the video on him plastered the thumbnail in warning signs and bright colors, even put a censor bar over his face and the title said "83 days of NUCLEAR HELL", and it havent watched it because it just strikes me as off because of the title and thumbnail, i get that the story is quite horrifying but the way it was presented just seemed like it was being used for a sensationalized youtube video, kinda like those true crime things)
14:24 "Looking for more orphan scores, just in case, and they found another 300 of them." WTF?! I feel like we're lucky they found them before any more accidents happened. It's scary to think that more people could have been seriously hurt or killed because of them. It's a possibility that several animals were already hurt/killed because of them.
How the hell do you lose 300 of them?
@@owgdj when scientists have to sell oranges on street market in order to survive and new owners of a building don't give a shit, such things can happen.
@@ShaLun42 Or when you just don't care about the population of a country and leave your mess to be their problem instead. That's basically the USSR and Russia in a nutshell.
@@Ragedaonenlonely or private companies that don't want to pay to properly store/dispose of these things properly, like what happened in the Goiânia event.
The HLH series are so incredibly interesting, I had no idéa that RTGs was a thing! It's amazing how well you find stories and manage to present them in an capturing way.
Very well said! Would be disappointed if this Half life series was no more
I knew what RTGs were because I'm a space nut.
They're the reason that Voyager 2 is still capable of sending data back to Earth today, 35 years after launch.
Meager data, in part because there's not much to see out there, but also because neutron radiation from the lump of radioactive material inside(plutonium glass, I think?) has severely damaged the thermocouples that convert heat to electricity and they lack the power capacity to turn most sensors on.
@@CptJistuce Also because the decay has reduced the energy output.
@@TheOz91 As I understand it, that's not actually much of a problem, and they could keep V'Ger running at full power for another century if the thermocouples weren't degrading so rapidly.
@@CptJistuce Yeah. Hopefully, more advanced thermoelectric generators will be more efficient. I was actually sad when NASA canceled the Stirling engine RTG program. The only thing that would reduce power to a free piston Stirling is that the working fluid would eventually dissipate (it is helium, after all.)
hey, I've very recently (as in like, yesterday) stumbled across your channel and I've been non stop watching and listening to your work in the background of what I'm doing. I would like to thank you for all the work you put into these, they are amazingly well-made, and on topics that ought to be discussed way more than they are.
This was the first incident in you HLH series I'd never heard of. Wonderful video as always! I've said it before I'll say it again: this series is hugely important to educating people about nuclear power. Thank you for what you do
Hey Kyle! Long time watcher here. Just letting you know that after following your HLH series I took a nuclear reactor operator training course at NC State and got to stand above a 1MW reactor, saw Cherenkov Radiation in person, and learned the ins and outs of nuclear physics and proceeded to show your series to the professor, who loved it and promised she would watch more. Love it, keep up the great work!
NC State FTW!!
Im a Junior rn, but it’s my first choice and I plan to major in mechanical with a minor and nuclear.
Half-Life Histories is by far my favourite thing you make. Think you'll ever do one on the Kyshtym disaster?
"This is the 17th in the Half-life Histories series..."
...and I'm happy to say that I've watched all 17! Thank you once again for your quality AND *RESPECTFUL* work Kyle!
You have been one of the main motivators in my interest in the subject of all thing nuclear, and it is always fascinating to discuss these stories I've learned from you with my uncle when I see him as he's just as interested as me.
He actually worked at Three Mile Island when it was operational prior to the incident there, he recently told me about how he had to weld a $4mil piece of equipment, how he knew one of the men who had possibly gotten a lifetime or more's dose worth of radiation there, and showed me a picture of himself atop one of the cooling towers.
Thank you Kyle!! Ive been binging these lately and thoroughly enjoy these spine chilling tales.
That's probably the most terrifying way you've ever ended a video in this series
Nightmare fuel, for real.
This was an especially cool [HLH] because I don't think you've really gotten to highlight a recovery operation like this before! That recovery footage and team were amazing!
Hopefully the two survivors are doing okay.
I've seen this story before. This was by far the most in depth. Excellent!! Learned much more about what happened to the community.
I couldn't imagine being in their place.
"That fire pot we found was a nuclear pot?"
Thanks for the Lia recounting, and showing that rare footage. It can be strangely simple to deal with those little open radiation sources. Yet it can be remarkably simple to make things much worse, like passing around the capsule in the Goiânia incident.
Yeah. I was watching this going "Thank god they didn't load the damn things into the truck and drive home with them!"
"This is the seventeenth..."
Each one of these would be a great stand-alone episode. Thing is, you put out 17 of these with a coherent way of storytelling, depth, production value... I know you're a professional and you're supposed to be able to do these things, but come on... This is a ridiculous body of work right there, just awesome!
Thank you, Kyle. I love these Videos, the calm and serious Tone really works well. I also appreciate that you do these Videos without any of the typical overdramatization or Clickbait and that you show a great understanding and actual Facts about these incidents.
Thank you again and I'm looking forward for more
I absolutely love this series and your documentary style in general. Great stuff!
I try to keep sensationalism in mind with videos like these. For a viewer, the draw is inherently sensationalist. It is a mark of great consideration and care that Kyle's videos still feel respectful for the tragedy and the people most hurt by these events. This occurred to me when I felt a great swell of pride, seeing the IAEA's team cheer when they safely completed their dangerous extraction.
I hope you're proud too, Kyle.
One of the best series on all of YT.
It's a testament to the human body and medical treatments that _any_ of the 3 made it out alive. Look what it took a huge team, lots of money and almost perfect execution to remove safely while those 3 literally laid against these things for a whole night.
That's what vodka leads you to ig
Thank you Kyle! I always look forward to your next video!
never trust an object that is mysteriously warm/hot for no apparent reason
I first learned about this event through the channel Plainly Difficult - I had forgotten about it until now, but I can imagine a few of the other nuclear incidents on his channel might find their way here at some point.
I was disappointed that none of the IAEA emergency workers wore a light blue hazmat suit or said "Balls."
Yeah we are bound to cover the same historical events while doing these kinds of videos. I will point out, however, that I started the series without knowing that channel existed, and developed the style on my own.
@@kylehill It has happened in the past with the Goiana incident too I believe. But all the merrier. It's interesting to see both of your takes on the same events, though I personally prefer your videos on it and I'm always looking forward to seeing you cover it. You do it in such an informative and succinct way that's equal parts interesting and terrifying.
@@kylehill I've seen a lot of overlap in incidents between your channel, Plainly Difficult, and a number of other channels that tend to focus on engineering issues; every time there's overlap, I learn something new about the situation that wasn't brought up in someone else's video. So I say, the more the merrier!
It's pretty impossible to be the only channel to ever talk about an event so I think it's not worth mentioning
I got chills all over my back from this. Invisible horror, unforgivable and ruthless. Sobering reminder of our own fragility.
I absolutely love these series. Thank you for taking the time to make them, and the research.
I am always grateful for these videos. They are tragic and scary, but they educate me more than anything else. Understanding WHY and HOW radiation is scary is the step to not being afraid of it's positive qualities.
I had a radiation safety course the other week (obviously for SIGNIFICANTLY lower activity materials), they really drill into you the as low as reasonably possible methodology. They also mentioned that beta exposure is often overlooked for alpha and gamma exposure, and that for relatively cold samples, like uranium, you still have to consider the radiation from decay products, which can be far worse than that from the material you are working with.
Those wounds that are unable to heal is some of the most terrifying shit you can think of. Like seriously, i can think of a lot of bad stuff but that would be number 1 for sure.
There is this eerie feeling in every video of your series Kyle, can't explain it. These stories just carry this weird feeling...
You give so much care to your videos and I enjoy them every time, no matter how many times I have watched them!
Yes, it's very atmospheric. I absolutely love it.
I agree. I think a lot of the eeriness is due to so many incidents occurring in the former Soviet Union, a place almost inconceivably foreign to us westerners. The "Iron Curtain" prevented us from knowing much about the culture there. Time, the internet and these amazing videos have shed light on very dark incidents that occurred. I'd add the atmosphere of the historical videos contributes a great deal, as well. Take one word like "Chernobyl" and the images it conjures up are terrifying.
The eerie feeling is true horror. Not the typical scary movie stuff. But gut wrenching, core of humanity horror. It’s the macabre. The sense of thrill that comes from something so terrifying, yet informative. The fact that these things have happened and will continue to happen. The descriptions of things we humans have created and done to ourselves and fellow humans. Horror. But as an observer.
I first knew of this incident while i was doing research for my thesis in medicine about bacteriophage. I was always curious to know more. You did really a great job collecting this data and these footage
Amazing work, those men are heros! What an amazing display of cooperation towards fixing such a dangerous but pressing problem!
Easily the best series on RUclips!! Thanks Kyle!!
Radiation is one of the scarier things in life. Invisible and deadly.
So is air polution
@@MichalKolac air pollution don't kill you within 3 second of contact :)
@@MichalKolac but you got a point though, properly managed nuclear waste is much much batter than releasing it for the people to breath in
@@Leviathan0707 true
Pro-tip: if something metal is melting the snow around it, dont go near it, and report it to some authority.
"they abandoned the abandoned devices"
Cool to see ALARA mentioned, that was a big part of my radiation training to work with medical equipment like fluoroscopy! If you have to work with stuff, you want to make sure you're being as safe as possible :)