Anatoli Bugorski

Anatoli Petrovich Bugorski (; b. 25 June 1942) is a Russian retired particle physicist. He is known for surviving a radiation accident in 1978. In the accident, a high-energy proton beam from a particle accelerator passed through his brain.

The particle accelerator was a U-70 Synchrotron. It was maintained by the Protvino Institute for High Energy Physics. It had been having problems and Bugorski was investigating the problems. On the day of the accident, several safety mechanisms had either failed or been turned off. Bugorski walked into the room and put his head in the accelerator. He said he saw a "flash brighter than a thousand suns." Bugorski knew he had been exposed to dangerous particle radiation but decided to continue his day like normal. The next day, his head was swollen. Doctors said he had radiation illness, and told him that his skin would soon peeled off his face in the path the proton beam took as it moved through his head. Bugorski had been exposed to a proton beam of 70 GeV. This dose of radiation should have been fatal, but he lived with life changing injuries. He could not hear in his left ear or control the left side of his face because the protons burned through nerves.  He also developed epilepsy.

Bugorski has not spoken publicly since 1997. At that time, he said he was finding it hard to get his medicine and wanted to be examined by western scientists. He said he could not do this because he did not have enough money to move out of Russia.

References

Category:1942 births
Category:living people
Category:Russian physicists
Category:Nuclear accidents