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'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.
I always enjoyed reading his story when I was younger, it was an inspiration. It showed what a determined kid could do given enough knowledge and motivation.
He wasn't looking well the last tine he was arrested for... wait for it... stealing once again to try to get material for a new reactor.
He ended up being hospitalized for bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia, and had been on medication for schizophrenia ever since. His mother was also schizophrenic. He led an interesting life...
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
I've never seen an exact level, but it's been described as "well over 1000 times normal background radiation". That would mean "well over 2,4 sievert per year". No comments on exactly where a person had to be standing to receive that - assumedly in the shed right by the "reactor" ("target" would be a better description). You certainly wouldn't want to be sleeping there every night. But if you're in the next house over, no, it's probably pretty insignificant. Unless he had a fire or something and aerosolized it.
Still... just that radium paint alone, you wouldn't want the teen next door to have something like that...
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
It wasn't written in all caps?
1000 times background measured directly over a source is really not that much. And the risks it presents is much lower than a huge majority of people seem to think. I know the number 1000 sounds like a lot, but 1000 times something very small can still be very small.
Considering the fact that he has been apparently working with radioactive materials for at least a decade (arrested in 2007 for trying to steal smoke detectors for their Americium) without a single thought to safety, and considering he has turned down medical treatment for radiation exposure numerous times I'd say he died of complications resulting from exposure (and lack of treatment) to radioactive materials.
What you aren't considering is the very low actual risk numbers and a long history of medical evidence regarding exposure at even higher levels not resulting in significant statistical increases that a normal person would consider risk significant. If there was a 1 in 100,000 increase in the chance that this person would get cancer before he died, than in all likelihood your assumption is incorrect.
Cancer is only one way to die from radiation exposure
very low actual risk numbers and a long history of medical evidence regarding exposure at even higher levels not resulting in significant statistical increases
All that stuff about 'no statistically significant increase in risk' goes way out the window if he was careless and wound up taking in a significant amount of radioactive material (Or other poison) directly into his body.
The low risk occurs when the source of radiation is not directly inhaled or ingested.
"Don't try this at home".
And background radiation is already well below the maximum recommended dose per year.
Achille Talon
Hop!
I don't think people fully appreciate radiation (cloud chamber with uranium): https://imgur.com/r/woahdude/g...
Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So now imagine being exposed to that in larger doses for an extended period of time. I have no idea what killed this fellow, but certainly playing with something that's constantly generating tiny, invisible shrapnel might have had something to do with it.
If if misguided I couldn't help but affectionally admire him.
A lot of those things are also just plain ol' poisonous.
Alpha and neutron, mainly.
The 1000 number is from the original "radioactive boy scout" article and has been cited by a number of article since then.
Regardless, when you're dealing with "well over 2.4 sievert", it would be bad for you to be spending great amounts of time in that environment. Surely not what killed him, though. He's not going to get sores on his face like that just from having spent time near his "reactor" in the shed. That looks like small radiation ulcers, like he was getting material on his skin. Probably americium dioxide from his repeated smoke detector dissections. He was probably also inhaling and ingesting the stuff.
It's funny how on this site you see a policy of "overreact in the opposite direction" on a wide range of things. Just like there's a crowd here that responded to the negative hydrogen perception from the Hindenberg by taking a "hydrogen is harmless, hardly even burns!" stance, some seem to have responded to radiation panic with a "radiation is harmless, even for people who are opening up smoke detectors" attitude.
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
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.
1000 times background measured directly over a source is really not that much. And the risks it presents is much lower than a huge majority of people seem to think. I know the number 1000 sounds like a lot, but 1000 times something very small can still be very small.
The question of course, is what he was exposed to, how often, and did he ingest any of the radioactive matter. He was altready a bit careless, having OD'ed on canthaxanthin that he ingested as part of an experiment. He created an explosion of Red phosphorus n the basement of his house apparently not knowing that it was sensitive to shock, and he was pounding it with a hammer. So we have a young fellow that is remarkably careless.
The Americium from the smoke detectors, of which he stole a number of them - apparently 100 known. So most of that is excreted but the rest goes to the liver and one's nutsack if they happen to have one.
Thorium is fairly safe stuff, unless it is ingested, being an alpha emitter. Ingestion of the dust from one isn't so safe. He collected lantern mantles to collect the thorium they contained. Hahn used lithium from dismantled batteries to purify the thorium, using a Bunsen burner in the process. His standard of sanitation was not high.
Radium is another matter entirely about 20 percent of ingested radium makes its's way into the bones, and it is an alpha and gamma emitter. It's daughter element radon gas is also radioactive and causes cancer.
Tritium that he was going to use as a moderator, is also a radioactive beta emitter, but probably isn't/wasn't that big a deal. So it is very plausible that this young fellow ingested enough material to do himself physical harm from the radioactivity.
We'll never know the full extent of the radioactivity, because his mother threw most of his collected materials into the regular trash. She was fearful of her property value.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
What if?
He tried to make SuperMeth using childhood inspiration and Walter White mixed to create a new powerful " Radium infused crystal Methamphetamine ".
But idiot tried his own batch?
http://www.nndb.com/people/821...
lol
Still... just that radium paint alone, you wouldn't want the teen next door to have something like that...
What if he had more dangerous toxins like those found in a can of insecticide or certain common petroleum products at his disposal? We wouldn't want that either would we.
I truly hope that you do not work in the nuclear industry, as you have a remarkably arrogant and dangerous attitude.
No, Mister D from 63, they are not an equivalent as you suggest.
Many radioactive elements are also chemically poisonous as well as radioactive. A bit of Uranium in one's lunch will take out your kidneys before the radiation does anything to you. A kid shouldn't be playing with radioactive materials nor your ridiculous insecticide comparison.
However, to take your opinion that somehow radioactivity is safe, and making grand sweeping statements to that effect and not even making reference to the type of radioactivity is/was involved, makes me feel quite safe that you don't know what you are talking about.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
He was obviously smarter than most of us, and more driven. Too bad his energies couldn't be harnessed to positive ends.
Seriously, initially this seems like a cautionary tale on curiosity.
But if you look at this poor guy's later life, you'll see it for what it really is. Mental illness.
He simply couldn't let his fixation go. He's been busted for trying to accumulate radioactive materials via theft as an adult too.
Never mind the damage he's done. To others as well as himself... Never mind the other negative consequences he suffered.
Basically there should have been psychiatric intervention years ago.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I've never seen an exact level, but it's been described as "well over 1000 times normal background radiation".
The thing about "normal" is that it isn't very normal. It varies widely, from areas with almost no background radiation, to areas with very high levels. People who live in pitchblende areas deal with higher levels, every day, 24/7.
Yes, walk a few feet away, and radiation from radioactive sources drops radically, so as you say, the low energy "reactor" next door has absolutely no effect - you probably wouldn't even be able to measure it. The radiation levels from living next door to a powerplant for a year is comparable to living two days in Denver.
Sure, radioactivity is dangerous. So is asbestos, lead, mercury and many other things. But common for them is that the level of hysteria is far more dangerous than minimal exposure.
This goes for anything you do, but particularly anything dangerous. Turns out humans have done a lot of research on shit, and we know the right answer for a lot of things already. So rather than just flailing about trying to figure out what is going on, do some research. It may turn out that the problem you are trying to solve has already been solved, or that people have figured out a good reason it can't. You can save yourself a lot of time and headache, and in the case of something like nuclear materials painful death, by spending time on the front end finding out what humans have already worked out on a topic, rather than just jumping in and seeing what the fuck happens.
Thorium is an alpha emitter, but it has a couple of beta emitters in its decay chain so real thorium samples will emit both alpha and beta radiation.
*Tadum* *Crash* *Thud*
Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
But if you look at this poor guy's later life, you'll see it for what it really is. Mental illness.
He apparently was a meth head.
Meth can turn the most sober and normal person into a unrecoverable basket case in record time.
Meth - Not even once.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Bananas are relatively high in potassium (0.35%). In nature, 0.01% of potassium is unstable with a half-life of a billion years. Not biologically significant.
By way of contrast, granite is 5% potassium.
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He didn't exactly have an idyllic childhood. His mother was schizophrenic, seriously in cloud-cookoo land until she was hospitalized and put on heavy medication. It mostly controlled it after that, but she became very inattentive. She was also alcoholic. His parents divorced when he was a child. As a teen, he initially did most of his work at his father and stepmother's place, but as they became increasingly concerned by the danger level of his experiments, they began cracking down and disposing of any chemicals they found. So he switched his base of operations to his mothers' place.
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
He created an explosion of Red phosphorus n the basement of his house apparently not knowing that it was sensitive to shock, and he was pounding it with a hammer. So we have a young fellow that is remarkably careless.
You have a young fellow who's PARENTS were remarkably careless. I too pounded stuff with hammers when I was around 16 year old. I too liked fire, chemical experiments, playing with electricity.
I did as well. One of my favorite Christmas gifts was a big Chemistry set - and this was back in teh day where they put real chemicals in them, not just vinegar and baking soda. I made a lot of interesting stuff. I even had my own little outbuilding to use as a chemistry shed. But I did get some guidance and limits. I did adhere to them as well. I quickly understood radioactivity and it's ability to reach out and touch you. Its all just safety with chemicals.
In this fellows family, there were some major problems with his mother and also with him. Both were diagnosed Scizophrenic and at least he was diagnosed bipolar. What a sad mess.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Is your lab made out of granite or on the top of a mountain or something?
No, they are not, meaning you can't find a banana that emits statistically different amount from the background, unless maybe you manage to grow one near that reactor in Chernobyl.
We test some every year (students invariably bring them to our nuclear physics lab), and we've never seen anything but the background.
True (I just checked this my Ludlum 2221). A banana has only about 0.4 g of potassium in it which would produce 11 decays per second. It would be difficult to pick this out of background. But if you test a jar of NuSalt, or other potassium chloride salt substitute, which contains 100 g of potassium or so, the radiation is very easy to detect.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj