Slashdot Mirror
'Radioactive Boy Scout' Reportedly Passes Away At Age 39 (harpers.org)
A funeral notice quietly appeared on Tributes.com recently, announcing the death of David Charles Hahn. Though no cause of death was provided, when he was 17 Hahn "achieved some notoriety as a teenage Boy Scout with his attempt to build a nuclear reactor in his garden shed," remembers Slashdot reader braindrainbahrain:
His "reactor" ended when the EPA declared his backyard as a Superfund cleanup site due to hazardous levels of radiation. His story was captured in a Harper's magazine article, and later the book "The Radioactive Boy Scout" by Ken Silverstein. It was also a Slashdot topic...
Hahn had used materials from household products like lithium batteries, smoke detectors, and old radium clocks, according to Wikipedia, which adds that shortly after Hahn's lab was dismantled, he became an Eagle Scout.
Hahn had used materials from household products like lithium batteries, smoke detectors, and old radium clocks, according to Wikipedia, which adds that shortly after Hahn's lab was dismantled, he became an Eagle Scout.
If if misguided I couldn't help but affectionally admire him.
As we all are, constantly. Madame Curie knew what she was doing wasn't healthy, too.
He was on my ship. I was a nuke. He was not, and he was not nearly smart enough to be one. Nor did he have the dedication or discipline to succeed at it. He was obnoxious and racist. And I don't mean pretend racist that everyone like to toss around. He was openly racist and got his ass kicked more than once because of how openly bigoted and belligerent about it he was. There was nothing impressive about him, except for his disregard for common sense.
The annual average effective dose from natural background is 2.4 mSv. However, when the article claim 1000 times normal background radiation, it doesn't say anything about the radiation type which is an important criteria to determine the effective dose. You need to qualifies the radiation, how much X-, gamma or beta radiation vs alpha, fission fragments and heavy particles vs neutrons vs high-energy protons. Doing a comparison in sievert is not appropriate. Where did you get this 1000 number?
No doubt from the rectum.
We had radium, Americium-241,Thorium, and tritium. So we have alpha, beta and gamma. Purification techniques performed in a small shed, and probably under woefully inadequate conditions. The likelihood of ingestion and inhalation of daughter element radon was very likely.
What is more, Hahn's mother was fearful of the radioactive element' being known would negatively impact her property value, so she gathered up what she could and threw it out in the trash. This was a remarkably scrrewed up family.
So the total extent of the radioactivity will never be known. Whether or not an autopsy will be performed on Hahn is not known either.
But almost certainly, the scraping of the radium clocks, as well as the Americium-241 from the smoke detectors, the purification of the thorium from the lantern mantles ( apparently with nitric acid) the not always careful lad almost had to be dosing himself severely with radiation as well as regular chemical poisons. I shudder to think of just the nitric acid exposure.
And 30 some years is about right for the delay between exposure and problems.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
He wasn't looking well the last tine he was arrested for...
Interesting. The lad looks a little like this fellow from Nagasaki http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com...
Could be a coincidence of course. The only thing close I could think of would be meth issues.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.