After he died, Vasily Ignatenko's body was so radioactive that he had to be buried under multiple layers of zinc and concrete in order to protect the public from his corpse.
After he died, Vasily Ignatenko's body was so radioactive that he had to be buried under multiple layers of zinc and concrete in order to protect the public from his corpse.
See the horrific photos and learn more about the firefighter who braved the fires of Chernobyl
Vasily Ivanovich Ignatenko (Ukrainian: Василь Іванович Ігнатенко; Belarusian: Васіль Іванавіч Ігнаценка; Russian: Василий Иванович Игнатенко; 13 March 1961 – 13 May 1986) was a Soviet firefighter and first responder to the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
Ignatenko was raised on a collective farm near Gomel in the Byelorussian SSR, and worked for a time as an electrician. He became a firefighter in 1980 as part of his service in the Soviet Military, and was employed as a paramilitary firefighter afterwards.
On 26 April 1986, Ignatenko's fire brigade was involved in mitigating the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, fighting the fires started by the initial explosion. In the process, Ignatenko received a high dose of radiation, leading to his death in a Moscow radiological hospital eighteen days later.
On 26 April 1986, following the initial explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Paramilitary Fire Brigade No. 6 was quickly called to the scene, the call out coming at 2:29 a.m.
As Ignatenko was on duty that night, he was among the first 14 duty-watch firefighters from Pripyat to depart for the power station, located a mere four kilometers (2.5 mi) away from the city.
On the scene, Ignatenko fought fires on the roof of the ventilation building and unit three (adjacent to the destroyed fourth reactor), where numerous small blazes had been started by super-heated pieces of graphite, zirconium, and other components flung from the RBMK reactor during the explosion.
Using the unit three fire escape to reach the top of the 20-story structure, he, along with fellow firefighters Vladimir Tishura, Nikolai Titenok, and Nikolai Vashchuck were led by Lieutenants Viktor Kibenok and Volodymyr Pravyk in using water to extinguish these localized fires, while coordinating efforts to run firehoses up to the roof.
This was necessary because the building's internal firefighting water-pipes had been fractured by the explosion and water pumped through them was lost before it could reach the roof.
The high level of radioactivity present on the roof, however, quickly began to take its toll. Ignatenko and the others were inhaling irradiated smoke, and working amid piles of ejected nuclear material, and soon began to experience the initial effects of acute radiation syndrome.
Firefighters ordered by Major Leonid Telyatnikov to ascend the fire escape and assist met them halfway up as they struggled to descend, vomiting uncontrollably and unable to fully support themselves without one another's help.
Helped to the ground by fellow firefighters, Ignatenko was evacuated to the Pripyat Hospital, around 4 a.m.
After he died, Vasily Ignatenko's body was so radioactive that he had to be buried under multiple layers of zinc and concrete in order to protect the public from his corpse.
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