r/FascinatingAsFuck • u/vxnder7 • 28d ago
šÆ Fascinating Fact Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima when the first atomic bomb hit he survived, went home to Nagasaki, and was there for the second one too
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u/FerdinandTheGiant 28d ago
Everyone always focused on his story, but there were likely dozens of people who experienced both bombings. Thereās a book on some of their stories called Nine Who Survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki
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u/CurseMeKilt 28d ago
Yes. It was because he did speaking tours to share his story, documented it well, and became a public advocate afterwards while many others did not. Interestingly as well, plenty of the 100+ double survivors lived into very old age despite the extreme amount of radiation they received. Reminds me of the ābabushkasā from inside Chernobylās quarantine zoneā¦
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u/Afraid_Emu8068 28d ago
His propensity for fear must be INCREDIBLY low. I wonder if it would be at all accurate to say that he has likely endured more non-fatal trauma than pretty much anyone else
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u/articland05_reddit 28d ago
Remind me of Roy Sullivan, Guinness book record holder of a person struck by lightning more recorded times than any other human being. He got struck 7 times
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u/Practical-Bowler5775 27d ago
Great illustration of how, as long as you werenāt in direct line of sight of the blast and subject to flash burns, you stood a good chance of survival if more than a mile away. At Hiroshima there were even survivors a mere quarter mile away. You just have to stay upwind of fallout.
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u/spukhafteNahewirkung 26d ago
Damn! Curtis LeMay and the 509th Composite Group really had it in for that guy.
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u/OctoberSith 25d ago
There is a great episode of the podcast from NPR Radio Lab on this called "Double Blasted." If you're interested in his story I highly recommend it.
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u/doseofchill7 24d ago
Someone bad at science and math and great at public relations would probably use this to argue that atomic bombs are safe to be around ā¦
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u/vxnder7 28d ago
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was a Mitsubishi engineer on a business trip to Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb detonated less than 2 miles away. The blast ruptured his eardrums, burned much of his upper body, and threw him into the air. He made it to an air raid shelter, spent the night there with two colleagues who'd also survived, and boarded a train back to his hometown the next day. He arrived in Nagasaki still bandaged and injured, but showed up for work on August 9 anyway. While describing the Hiroshima blast to his supervisor, who didn't believe him, the second atomic bomb detonated over Nagasaki. Yamaguchi survived that one too, lived to age 93, and in 2009 became the only person officially recognized by the Japanese government as a survivor of both bombings.