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Comment by CaramelSauce | Hacker News Reader

I've seen this photo many times and have always wondered about the fate of the person in the picture considering how dangerous the elephant's foot is always said to be. It's good to hear that he's still alive and sounds healthy.

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In 1986 that distance from the corium you’d have 300 seconds before receiving an LD50. By 1996 when this photo was taken it would have taken an hour to receive an LD50.

Same here. This is by far the most badass selfie ever. Good to here he seems to be ok.

Alive but not very healthy:

> In his mid 60s, he was sickly, with cataracts, and had been barred from re-entering the sarcophagus after years of irradiation.

The article mentions cataracts too. These can happen to anyone, but radiation induced cataracts are well documented. https://radiationsafety.ca/radiation-induced-cataracts/

Yup. Cataracts are the best example of a deterministic radiation effect; i.e. receive X dose and you _will_ receive Y result. While cancer induction is stochastic; probabilistic effect of exposure.

That part of the story made me wonder why the cataracts haven't been treated. There are relatively low-risk and well-understood treatments for cataracts that do a very good job restoring vision.

Easy procedure for an individual with insurance in the US or EU, is the same true for Eastern Europe? IDK

Cost? The URSS was already declining by then, and Ukraine was “born poor” in many ways. A procedure might well be safe and effective, but if the local health service can’t afford to do it thousands of times, they will just ignore it.

Not sure where he lives, but in Russia this surgery is covered by mandatory medical insurance.

It looks like he treated his cataracts, because he wears glasses on his 2016 selfie at his page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100013326305771 .

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