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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'.
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.
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".
He could have handled it so much better. Particularly as an adult. He kept on carrying on in the same manner he did as a child. Nuclear physics isn't about just randomly jamming things together, you do calculations and simulations to see how your idea will work. You determine your radiation hazards, you look up your material handling guidelines, you permit (okay, I'd forgive him for skipping that one, he'd never get approval), then you build.
As an adult he apparently wanted to invent an always-on nuclear lightbulb. Of course, we already have those with tritium-lit exit signs, but he had some design of his own in mind, something bright (and almost certainly obscenely dangerous)
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.
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?...
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!!!
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