Today's video is going to feature three of the worst medical
procedures and incidents that have ever occurred. Before you continue, I want to warn you that
these stories are very sad and very disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised. [music] In the year 2000, Donald Church went to the doctor
and got a terrible diagnosis. He had been sick and in pain for the past little while,
and after a series of tests, doctors found that he had a large malignant tumor
in his abdomen. Thankfully, although the tumor was cancerous,
it was at a stage where it was operable. So despite it still being a scary diagnosis,
the chances were good for treatment. Donald was scheduled to have surgery
to have the tumor removed, and then in June of the year 2000, he arrived
at the University of Washington Medical Center. At the hospital, he was placed under anesthesia, and then the doctors started working on
cutting out the large tumor. Because of how large it was and its location,
they also had to remove his appendix and part of his large intestine along with the tumor. The surgery was ultimately a success
and the tumor was removed. But then after Donald woke up, he was in
an immense amount of pain. Initially, he figured this was normal
since it was a major surgery, and he would have to spend the next week in the hospital
anyway to be monitored and recover, so he had plenty of time to just rest
and not move much. But by the end of the week,
the pain hadn't subsided at all. It was excruciating to walk and bend over
and even go to the bathroom. His surgeons reassured him once again
that this was a major surgery - significant pain even after a week isn't uncommon. Then, a week after surgery, he was discharged
from the hospital and went home, but the pain was even worse now
that he was moving around. Any movement at all was almost unbearably painful. He couldn't have bowel movements for days at a time,
and he sometimes felt a weird bulging in his abdomen, like the swelling was getting worse. And the pain seemed to move around. Sometimes, he felt it in his stomach, and other times,
it was closer to his chest. The pain got to be so bad that there were times that he
would just lay down on the bathroom floor, sobbing. Eventually, he started to think that he was
literally dying. The pain was so bad. A couple of weeks following the surgery,
he was okay to return to work where he worked in building maintenance. But when he returned to work,
he was almost completely unable to work and especially unable to do anything heavy. At his 30-day post-op checkup, he told the surgeon
about how much pain he was in, but for some reason, they didn't quite
understand the severity. They reassured him once again that this was totally
normal because of how extensive the surgery was. But this wasn't normal -
the surgeons had made a huge mistake. Another couple of weeks went by and Donald was still in
excruciating pain almost every moment of the day. Finally, three weeks following the post-op checkup,
his wife and mother convinced him that he needed to get a second opinion so he called up his family doctor and
scheduled an appointment. When he went into the doctor's office, the doctor
did actually feel around the area and noticed a concerning lump in Donald's abdomen. The doctor then sent him for x-rays
and lo and behold, the x-ray revealed that Donald had a
13-inch-long (33 cm) metal retractor inside of his abdomen that was
left there during the surgery. The pain that he felt was the instrument
shifting back and forth in his abdomen - sometimes causing pain in his stomach
and sometimes in his chest. The bulging that he felt was the instrument literally
pushing up against his skin from the inside. Now, you might be wondering how something so large
could have ever gotten lost in the first place, or why there was no procedure to
check for something like that. Well, apparently, there is a procedure to count
and check all of the smaller instruments to prevent something like this from happening. But there was nothing in place for larger instruments, simply because no one ever thought that something over a
foot-long could possibly get lost during a surgery. As the surgeons were doing the surgery, the retractor was placed in such a way that at some point,
it slipped inside of his abdomen and then out of view. After they removed everything they needed to remove, Donald was stitched back up with the 13-inch-long
retractor still inside of his body. Following this discovery, Donald was in shock. He actually wasn't angry; he was relieved.
He had sincerely believed that he was dying, so finding the root cause for all of his pain
substantiated everything he had been feeling for the last two months. A few days following the x-ray,
he returned to the hospital and finally had the 13-inch retractor
removed from his body. The hospital and operating team would
take full responsibility for the mistake, and Donald was awarded $97,000
in damages for his suffering. Following the mistake as well, new policies were
enacted to count all of the instruments, including the larger ones, to ensure
nothing like this would ever happen again. And although this was a horrifying experience
for Donald, this policy has slowly been adopted nationwide
to reduce the likelihood of it happening to anyone else. Up until 2011, Japan received both 30% of all
of its electricity from nuclear power. In 2011, an earthquake and subsequent tsunami
rocked the coastal region of Fukushima. These two in combination damaged a
nuclear power plant in the area, which ultimately led to the second-worst nuclear
disaster since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Following this event, Japan's dependence
on nuclear energy declined significantly. And although Fukushima was the worst
nuclear disaster in Japanese history, there were two others in the late '90s that resulted in
one of the worst medical incidents in recorded history. The first was a relatively minor accident in 1997
at the Tōkai Nuclear Plant. The waste product from these power plants
is encased in asphalt for storage. And on March 11th, the plant was trialing
a new mixture of asphalt. The new mixture caused a chemical reaction
with the waste product that then caught fire and quickly spread
throughout the plant. Workers on site were unable to put out the fire and then
were forced out by the fire and radiation alarms. The gases inside the building eventually built up
to the point that the windows exploded, causing smoke and radiation to escape
into the surrounding area. Ultimately, 37 of the workers were exposed
to trace amounts of radiation and some trace amounts were also detected
in the surrounding area. Then, in 1999, about four miles (6.4 km) away from the Tōkai
Nuclear Plant at a fuel enrichment plant, there was a second and more severe accident. On September 30th, three technicians were quickly
going through some of the fuel conversion steps to meet an upcoming shipping deadline. This was the first batch of fuel that the plant
had needed in three years, and there had been no additional training done
or qualifications required by the plant for its technicians to complete the process. In addition, to save time, the technicians were mixing
the chemicals manually in stainless-steel buckets. They were following guidelines laid out by the plant, but weren't aware that this manual procedure had not
been approved by the Nuclear Safety Board. If they had been following proper procedure,
the chemicals would've first been stored inside of a buffer tank and then gradually
pumped in in increments. Because they were doing it by hand,
they had skipped that step and instead, added seven times the legal mass
of chemicals into the next tank. At 10:35 AM, as they added the seventh bucket,
the uranium mixture reached critical mass, which is the minimum amount of material
required to begin a nuclear chain reaction. This chain reaction emitted intense
gamma and neutron radiation directly into the three technicians standing close by. One worker was sitting at a desk
about four meters (13 ft) away. Another was standing on a platform beside the tank, and the third was draped over the tank,
pouring in the final bucket. All three of them observed a blue flash, and then the gamma radiation alarm
started sounding all over the plant. Immediately following the flash as well, the two closest workers started experiencing intense pain,
nausea, and difficulty breathing. Hisashi Ouchi, who had been draped over the tank,
received the most radiation, and quickly had a hard time moving around,
talking, and even staying conscious. With the alarm sounding,
all three men evacuated the building, but the severity of the situation wasn't apparent just yet. After exiting the building, another worker saw what rough
shape they were in, and so he called an ambulance. The three men were escorted to a nearby hospital, and this
is where the terrifying events would soon be realized. The Sievert is the unit of measure used to describe
the effect of radiation on the human body. Exposure to one Sievert carries an additional
5.5% chance of developing cancer at some point during the exposed person's lifetime. One Sievert is also the maximum amount that a
NASA astronaut is allowed to be exposed to over the course of their entire career. For context, flight attendants receive about 1/1000th
of that on a yearly basis at cruising altitude. A single full-body CT scan is about 30 times
what a flight attendant receives, but still less than 1/20th of a single Sievert. Going up the scale, four to five Sieverts is considered to be
a fatal dose if it's received in a short span of time. The technician who was sitting at the desk of four meters
away received a dose of three Sieverts. The technician standing on the platform
received a dose of 10 Sieverts. And Hisashi Ouchi, who was draped over the tank,
received a dose of 17 Sieverts. Hisashi had already vomited violently
and passed out before reaching the hospital. By the time the ambulance had gotten to the hospital, the radiation burns had become visible over his
entire body and his eyes were leaking blood. When the doctors took his blood, they found
that he had almost zero white blood cells left, meaning that he had almost no immune response. Doctors moved him to a special area of the hospital
to prevent infection and assess the damage to the rest of his body. A few days later, he was transferred to the
University of Tokyo Hospital with the hope that revolutionary stem cell transplants might
be able to regenerate some of his lost tissue. Exposure to high doses of radiation is particularly
insidious because it causes DNA damage. DNA is the set of instructions that your cells
use to replicate, and so if it becomes damaged,
your cells can no longer replicate. For example, your skin cells are constantly dying
and being replaced by new cells. Because Hisashi had received so much radiation,
his skin wasn't able to regenerate, and so his first week in intensive care involved
countless skin grafts to try to replace the skin that his body wasn't able to. Doctors then attempted to use stem cells
donated by his sister instead, but he still had so much radiation coursing through his body -
those cells were destroyed as well. Over weeks of treatment, Hisashi's skin
literally melted away from his body. During this time, Hisashi was in an immense
amount of pain and suffering, but at the wishes of his family,
the treatments continued. He would even cry out that he couldn't take it anymore and that he wasn't a guinea pig
for these experimental treatments. On day 59 in the hospital,
Hisashi had his first heart attack - again, despite the fact that it was clear at this point
that the radiation wasn't treatable. His family insisted that the doctors revive him. Over the next few weeks, he suffered from
multiple organ failure and brain damage each time he was revived from a heart attack. At one point, he would have three
heart attacks in a single hour. Finally, after 83 days of suffering, Hisashi died of
one final unrecoverable heart attack. His coworker who had been standing on the platform would
die several months later after a seven-month battle, and the technician sitting at the desk was released
from the hospital with minor radiation sickness after a couple of months. The Kennedy family of the United States
is almost like the Royal Family in England. Over a dozen members of the Kennedy family
have been active in politics, entertainment, and business for over a century. And although former President John F. Kennedy is the most
recognizable member of this pseudo-royal family, the Kennedys were famous long before
he was elected. JFK's father, Joe, was a successful
businessman in Boston and his father, Patrick, was elected into public office
in Massachusetts all the way back in 1884. JFK was actually one of nine kids -
three of which would later go into politics, but this story is about his lesser-known
younger sister, Rosemary Kennedy. Born on September 13th, 1918, Rosemary was the third-oldest child and the
first girl born to Joe and Rose Kennedy. During her birth, the doctor wasn't
immediately available because he was dealing with an outbreak
of the Spanish Flu, and so the nurse on staff instructed
Rose to keep her legs closed, and even went as far as to physically push the baby's
head back in the birth canal for two hours. With her legs closed, there wasn't enough
oxygen in the birth canal, and this ultimately resulted in Rosemary being born
with permanent brain damage. This wasn't immediately clear until Rosemary started to
show signs of being developmentally delayed. In contrast to her two healthy older brothers, Rosemary was still having trouble sitting up
and crawling at two years old. This prompted her parents to bring her
to a number of specialists who would link her botched delivery to her disabilities. At the time, disabilities and especially
mental illness were highly stigmatized. To keep their reputation intact, they decided
to keep Rosemary's condition a secret. Instead of going to a regular school, she was sent to
a boarding school for the intellectually-disabled, which was also conveniently out of the public eye. Now, despite their efforts to keep
Rosemary's condition a secret, her parents didn't treat her any differently otherwise. Her diary was later found to be filled with outings
to operas, dances, and other social activities. But her household and her siblings
were all very competitive. This created a frustrating situation where Rosemary
was constantly out-competed by her non-developmentally-disabled siblings. To make matters worse, her parents believed that
by holding her to the same standard as the rest of her siblings, it would help
cure her of her disabilities. Despite these efforts and a number of tutors
and other experimental treatments, Rosemary's intellectual abilities never
developed past a fifth-grade level. In 1938, Joe was given the role of
United States Ambassador to England, which required the entire family to relocate. Although her parents had tried to keep
her out of the public eye back in the US, it was impossible to do so in London where they
were obligated to attend a number of parties and other public events. Despite this, Rosemary flourished in England. Her parents enrolled her in a convent school where the nuns provided her with some
much-needed support for her disability and trained her to eventually become
a teacher's aide. She was even presented to the king and queen along with
her mother and sister in a debutante ball. Despite having minimal time to prepare, Rosemary
nailed all of the ceremonial customs. The British press was enamored with her, and the coverage of the events was focused
much more on her than her younger sister. With the start of World War II in 1938, the Kennedys returned to the United States,
except for Rosemary and her father. Rosemary was sent to the
Montessori Belmont House which would prove to be an even better environment
than the previous convent and Rosemary was the happiest she'd ever been. Unfortunately, Joe was forced to resign as ambassador
after a series of political missteps. At which point, Joe and Rosemary were also
forced to return to the United States and rejoin the rest of their family. Her sister would later write that back in the US,
Rosemary regressed significantly. Removed from her support system and back into
the competitive environment of her family, Rosemary began to have seizures and violent mood swings
where she physically assaulted other people. In addition, she started sneaking out at night, roaming the
streets of Washington and going to bars. Despite the fact that she was 22 at the time,
her parents and the nuns at the convent strongly disagreed with her behavior. Her older brothers at the time were also being prepared
for their promising political careers. Fearing that her behavior and her disabilities
might become public knowledge, her father arranged for her to undergo a recently developed
and controversial medical procedure. He also never felt the need to tell anyone else
in the family, including his wife. It's also not entirely clear whether or not Rosemary herself
even knew the full extent of the procedure and whether or not she was forced into it. In November of 1941, Rosemary was brought in for the
procedure where she was given a mild tranquilizer. Then, her head was shaved and she was
strapped to an operating table. The surgeon then made a small incision on
either side of her skull near her temple, no more than an inch wide. After that, he inserted an instrument
resembling a butter knife and started swinging it up and down
to cut brain tissue. He then asked Rosemary to recite several hymns
and songs as he continued to cut away. When she stopped talking, they knew
they had cut far enough. The procedure that Rosemary had undergone was the
Nobel Prize-winning and now-banned lobotomy. First developed in the 1930s and then
popularized in the 1940s and '50s, a lobotomy is performed by cutting the connection
to the prefrontal cortex. In case it wasn't already obvious,
this is maybe not the best idea. But this was also during a period in history
when the highly radioactive radium was being touted as a cure-all. So by 1951, almost 20,000 lobotomies had been
performed in the United States alone, despite the fact that it had already been banned
by some countries in Europe. And despite the fact that the American Medical Association
strongly advised against the practice, Joe arranged for it anyway. Following the procedure, it quickly became apparent
that it had not been successful. It had been disastrous. Rosemary was no longer able to walk or talk, she was incontinent, and her mental capacity
had been reduced to that of a two-year-old. In the span of just a couple of minutes, Rosemary had gone from a blossoming 23-year-old
with minor behavioral problems to requiring almost 24-hour supervision. Joe then had her sent to a psychiatric hospital
in Upstate New York and forbid any of the family from going to see her. He allegedly told Rose that visiting her would
prevent her from getting accustomed to her new living arrangements and told the rest of the family that she was off studying
and getting involved in social work. Her closest sibling and younger sister, Eunice, even said that she had no idea where Rosemary was
for over a decade. Joe maintained that Rosemary was doing just fine,
and then by 1944, Joe stopped mentioning her entirely in letters that
he wrote that were later collected and analyzed. In 1948, JFK was steadily moving up
the political ladder, and so Joe had her moved once again
to an institution in Wisconsin where she would live for the next 56 years. In 1958, JFK secretly visited Rosemary
and realized the horrific condition she was in and what had been done to her. He went on to use his power as president
to enact several pieces of legislation for programs for the disabled. But it wasn't until 1970, following the death of Joe,
that her mother and the rest of family finally reintegrated Rosemary in their life. Upon seeing her mother after over 20 years, Rosemary supposedly recoiled
because of how upset she was. Following her reunion with the family, her siblings
and her nieces and nephews did their best to involve Rosemary in everything they could, and she would live up the rest of her life in a cottage
specifically built for her at the institution in Wisconsin. She died in 2005 of natural causes,
surrounded by her four surviving siblings. Hello everyone. My name is Sean and
welcome to Scary Interesting. If you made it this far,
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