On June 3, 1978, a Russian particle physicist experienced an event unmatched in history. Anatoli Bugorski accidentally placed his head directly into the path of a high energy proton beam firing inside the largest particle accelerator in the Soviet Union.
He absorbed a localized radiation dose measuring hundreds of thousands of roentgens. Doctors fully expected him to die within days. He did not. This is the documented account of how a scientist absorbed a massive amount of radiation and lived to continue his career.
A Malfunctioning Safety Mechanism
Anatoli Bugorski worked as a researcher at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino. His work involved the U-70 synchrotron. On the day of the accident, Bugorski was checking malfunctioning equipment. The safety mechanisms failed while he was working. Unaware of the failure, Bugorski leaned over the equipment and placed his head directly into the path of the 76 GeV proton beam.
Brighter Than A Thousand Suns
The beam entered through the back of his head, traveled through the occipital and temporal lobes of his brain, passed the left middle ear, and exited through the left side of his nose. Bugorski reported seeing a flash of light brighter than a thousand suns, but felt no pain.
The exposed areas of his head received a local dose of 200,000 to 300,000 roentgens, which equates to 2,000 to 3,000 sieverts. Bugorski understood what had happened. He finished his work on the equipment and initially kept the accident a secret.
Severe Physical Alterations
Shortly after the exposure, the left side of Bugorski’s face swelled beyond recognition. The skin began peeling over the following days, exposing the path the beam burned through his face, bone, and brain tissue. He was transported to a Moscow clinic where doctors observed him, expecting him to succumb to the fatal dose.
Against medical expectations, Bugorski survived. The accident destroyed the hearing in his left ear, leaving him with a form of tinnitus. The nerves on the left side of his face were destroyed, resulting in permanent paralysis. Because of this paralysis, that side of his face does not develop wrinkles.
Returning to the Accelerator
Following the accident, Bugorski completed his PhD and returned to work as a particle physicist. He eventually became the experiment coordinator for the same particle accelerator that injured him. The event caused no damage to his intellectual capacity, though he noted increased mental fatigue.
He began experiencing occasional complex partial seizures and rare tonic-clonic seizures. Due to the strict secrecy policies of the Soviet Union, he did not speak publicly about the event for more than ten years. He continued visiting the Moscow radiation clinic twice a year. In 1996, he unsuccessfully applied for disability status to receive free epilepsy medication. He expressed interest in allowing Western researchers to study his condition but lacked the funds to leave Protvino.