Out of all places to stick your head into, a particle accelerator would rank among the worst.
Yet, on that fateful day of 13 July 1978, thirty-six-years-old Russian scientist Anatoli Bugorski just had to.
As soon as his head crossed the invisible beam of proton, his brain was zapped.
Bugorski felt no pain, but he reportedly saw a flash brighter than a thousand suns.
A section of the U-70 proton synchrotron at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino.
Bugorsky was rushed to Moscow and admitted to a special clinic that treated victims of radiation poisoning.
No other human being had ever experienced such a focused beam of radiation at such high energy.
Usually a dose of 400 to 1,000 rads is enough to kill a person.
But Bugorski survived, because it was a focused beam.
The beam had entered through the back of his head and exited through his nose.
Bugorski also began to have frequent episodes of seizures.
But his intelligence remained as sharp as ever.
Anatoli Bugorskis swollen face after the accident.
The figure on the right shows the path of the proton beam through his skull.
It was only after the Chernobyl disaster, his story came to light.
Anatoli Bugorski not only survived, he outlived the proton accelerator that maimed him.
Bugorski still lives in Protvino.
He is a few months short of 78, at the time of this writing.
In 1996, he applied for disabled status but his app was rejected.
