In November 1992, a worker in Shanxi picked up a small metal rod at work. He saw the smooth shape, so he put it in his pocket and took it back. However, what he didn't expect was that soon, an unknown disease spread throughout his body. Within half a month, he died, and the men in his family also died. People around him were panicked, and even the central government was alarmed. What was going on? Why can a metal rod bring so much power? Welcome to comment, like and collect.
Metal rods kill people
Metal rods bring bad luck
On November 19, 1992, , a worker named Zhang Youchang was at work in Xinzhou City, Shanxi Province. Equipment was being renovated on the construction site, and Zhang Youchang's job was to dig soil. During the process, his tool hit a hard object. Zhang Youchang looked down and saw that it was a small metal rod, only two or three centimeters, fat and plump, but very bright. Zhang Youchang liked it more and more, so he put it in his breast pocket.
After work, Zhang Youchang rubbed the metal rod and returned home slowly. Unexpectedly, after dinner, Zhang Youchang began to have symptoms of vomiting and dizziness. Zhang Youchang didn't feel strange at first. He thought the symptoms were caused by overwork due to the recent intense construction work, so he asked for leave from the construction site and went to a nearby hospital to check it out.
worker
What surprised Zhang Youchang was that after the doctor conducted a simple examination on him, he could not find out why he was acting like this. Zhang Youchang didn't think much about it, because sometimes people are overworked and prone to symptoms for which no cause can be found. Generally speaking, after overexertion, you will be better after a day of rest. Zhang Youchang just prepared some medicine and went home.
However, after resting for a few days, Zhang Youchang did not feel any better, and his symptoms became more and more serious. At first he was just dizzy and vomiting, and later he even started to have abdominal pain, and even his hair began to fall out in large quantities. Zhang Youchang's family saw something was wrong with him and quickly called an ambulance to take him to a local hospital. The doctor who received Zhang Youchang was very shocked. He did not expect that Zhang Youchang's condition would deteriorate to this point in just a few days.
The few days in the hospital by ambulance
were the most difficult days in Zhang Youchang's life. Some dark purple marks began to appear on his body. He had difficulty breathing and continued to have a high fever. He fell asleep almost every day and rarely woke up.. Just when Zhang Youchang was suffering deeply, the doctors and nurses also felt helpless because no matter what, they could not find out why Zhang Youchang got such a disease.
At this moment, another piece of bad news came. Zhang Youchang’s brother Zhang Youshuang had been taking care of his younger brother wholeheartedly after he developed such serious symptoms. As a result, the lively Zhang Youshuang also started to have fever and diarrhea, and developed symptoms very similar to Zhang Youchang. The doctor was immediately shocked and realized that this was an infectious disease ! So the doctor isolated the two people according to the isolation method for infectious diseases.
Seriously ill
However, after isolating the two people, doctors still did not find the bacteria or virus that caused this infectious disease. Soon, Zhang Youchang and Zhang Youshuang were dying. Before they died, they looked hideous and in great pain. Before Zhang Youchang died, he told his family to take good care of themselves and not to be harmed by this unknown disease. However, Zhang Youchang's reminder was obviously too late, because soon his father Zhang Mingliang and his wife Zhang Fang both developed the same symptoms.
The whole family collapsed
After seeing his two sons infected by this unknown disease, Zhang Mingliang was very sad. He decided to send the two children to a larger hospital. At that time, the best hospital in Shanxi Province was the hospital in Taiyuan City. But even when the two brothers arrived at the Taiyuan City Hospital, the doctors were unable to do anything.Since there was no effective treatment at all, Zhang Mingliang could only take his two children back to die.
Sad Father
When Zhang Mingliang was old, his two sons suddenly died, and he shed tears every day. But soon, Zhang Mingliang also developed the same symptoms as his two sons, and probably because of his poor health, he became ill very quickly. Less than 8 days after Zhang Youchang's death, his father Zhang Mingliang passed away .
Less than half a month after Zhang Youchang became ill, all three men of the Zhang family died, causing the residents of the town to panic. Many people also showed similar symptoms. Soon, the neighbors all moved away, and for a while, the entire town almost turned into a dead city.
Beijing Hospital
At this time, the only living person left in the family was Zhang Youchang's wifeZhang Fang. Before Zhang Mingliang died, he burst into tears looking at the only junior in his family and advised her not to worry about money and go to a big hospital for a check-up. Zhang Fang then moved to Beijing. Beijing's hospitals are of relatively high standard, and soon after a joint consultation with Beijing experts, it was discovered that all of Zhang Fang's indicators were very abnormal.
According to the previous doctor’s diagnosis, what occurred among this family should be a strongly contagious disease. For severe infectious diseases, the cause must be viruses or bacteria. There is a line of defense composed of cells in the human body. When these foreign objects invade, white blood cells will automatically fight against them. If they are infected with an infectious disease, the content of white blood cells in the body will increase, but Zhang Fang's white blood cell number is actually not as good as 1/10 of normal people.
White blood cells and red blood cells
So where did the white blood cells go? Medical experts in Beijing continued to trace this clue and finally confirmed that Zhang Fang's illness was radiation sickness. However, this disease is so rare that for the sake of caution, medical experts in Beijing even invited experts from the Institute of Industrial Hygiene to help Zhang Fang and Zhang Fang. Experts from the Industrial Experimental Research Institute pointed out that Zhang Fang should have been affected by cobalt 60 radiation, which killed all white blood cells.
But where did Zhang Fang, the wife of an ordinary worker, come into contact with dangerous substances such as cobalt 60?
Cobalt 60 is a dangerous product
Metal rods hide evil threats
How dangerous is cobalt 60? Everyone knows atomic bomb . The substance that prompts the nuclear explosion of the atomic bomb is uranium 235. Now people generally believe that the atomic bomb is the most powerful weapon, but in fact there is a more powerful weapon that humans currently dare not make. This kind of thing is the cobalt bomb . Cobalt 60 is the main reactive substance of cobalt bombs. A cobalt bomb can turn the entire Europe into a no man's land in an instant.. Now you know how radioactive cobalt-60 is, right?
Generally speaking, such dangerous things should at least be kept in secret laboratories. Why can a worker's wife be exposed to cobalt 60? This has to mention the metal rod that Zhang Youchang picked up at the beginning.
Cobalt 60 Incident
Although the metal rod looks small and cute, Zhang Youchang couldn't put it down. But Zhang Youchang didn't know that this thing was a cobalt-60. Then things get even weirder here. How could a cobalt-60 be picked up by a worker? Could it be that the collector was negligent? Of course this is not the case.
In 1973, the construction site where Zhang Youchang worked was not a construction site, but a farmland. Researchers want to use cobalt-60 radioactivity to cause genetic mutations in crops and extract superior varieties for cultivation. The responsible ones were mainly the Xinzhou Science and Technology Bureau and the Shanghai Second Machinery Department. A total of 6 cobalt 60s were used.
Experimental field
In fact, when this experiment was conducted, the protection was relatively good. But the problem was that a total of 6 pieces of cobalt 60 were used at that time, but when they were taken out, a staff member made a mistake and thought they were 4 pieces of cobalt 60.This resulted in two pieces of cobalt-60 falling into the farmland and not being taken out. In 1980, the Xinzhou City Science and Technology Bureau changed its address, the farmland was lifted, and a factory was built, where Zhang Youchang happened to work.
Zhang Youchang probably did not expect that a metal rod he picked up casually could bring such bad luck to his family. What scares scientists even more is that with Zhang Youchang's death, no one seems to know where the metal rod went. Scientists are anxious, because once cobalt 60 is scattered among the people, the impact will be immeasurable.
Cobalt60
People like Zhang Youchang who have had direct contact will die within half a month. Even if other people have not had direct contact, they are likely to develop various symptoms, and even undergo genetic mutations due to exposure to radiation, resulting in various uncontrollable genetic diseases.
Fortunately, when Zhang Youchang was sent to the hospital, a responsible doctor saw the scene. Zhang Youchang's condition was critical at that time, and he was in a panic when he was sent to the hospital. His family moved him too much, and the cobalt 60 fell out of his pocket. Because Zhang Yongchang's condition is relatively critical, no one cares about cobalt 60. As for cobalt 60, it should have been received in the garbage dump later.
The imaginary cobalt bomb
The staff, for the sake of the health and safety of the citizens, did not care that it was in the garbage dump. They immediately conducted a large-scale investigation of the garbage dump around the entire hospital, and finally found the deadly cobalt 60 in the stinky garbage. The whole process took more than two months from when Zhang Youchang picked up the cobalt 60 to when the cobalt 60 was recycled. Not only did three people in Zhang Youchang's family die, but it even caused injuries to 138 other people and affected the health of 141 people.
This incident not only alarmed the central government, but was even included in the case of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency.. In fact, the existence of this case also serves as a warning to various institutions. When using these highly radioactive substances, they must take care of the aftermath. A momentary mistake like that of misremembering a number is likely to bring misfortune to countless people, and it is not worthy of forgiveness! What do you think about this? Welcome to comment, like and collect.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-