While refreshing my memory of Windscale, I just read that it released iodine 131 during the incident. I know a lot about this, because I co-wrote some documents about it for the "safety case" for one of the fuel cycles of Sizewell-B (the reactor in Suffolk.) Basically I had to run a load of computations and modelling to prove the amount of I-131 released from the fuel cells (but still trapped inside the fuel rod) would remain below some mandated limits. I-131 is, in some ways, one of the worst things that come out of a reactor breach: it's a gas, so can't be contained and quickly spreads over a very large area. And it's a beta emitter, so it's almost harmless outside the body but very toxic inside it. And it's iodine, so your body naturally stores it in your thyroid gland. Nasty stuff. They use very controlled doses of it to treat thyroid conditions. In the event of a breach, standard procedure is to drink pure chemical iodine to flush the radioactive isotope from your body; if you've ever smelled iodine you'll appreciate how foul that is.

At first, as usual, my brain did not realise the seriousness of the situation I was watching. This is very common for me. I don't see risk very well and I usually don't respond to things I really should that are clearly dangerous. That is why I've broken nearly every bone in my body. From fingers, to hands, to arms and legs, etc. So I was all like "Oh look, it's tomato guy from Robocop !" and then slowly I began to realise this was not fantasy. And by the time they turned black I was almost in tears. Then it all hit home. See, like the riots in LA I was still pretty young when this happened. 12, I worked out. So it was just what we saw on the TV. Some smoke, "it's all under control" and etc. I was totally unprepared for what was going to happen. In fact, episodes 1 and 2 were about the most interesting thing I have watched in a very long time. Nerdish pornography if you will, because as much as I have read about it it's hard to actually visualise it. There's also an awful lot to learn here without needing to be a professor to understand it. You know, you read something like "And they died in horrible circumstances" and it's hard to see that they basically turned fucking black and most of their cells and their body was dead before they were.

Just truly, truly awful. I am going to stick it out now simply because it's amazing, but had I known what happened to those poor fuckers I doubt I would have watched it at all.

And those miners? fuck me, those are heroes. Hard as nails, and I must admit I LOLed when I saw them all walking around naked as the day they were born. Just absolute fucking legends the lot of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5GTvaW34O0

Well worth a watch if you have seen the docu-series. It's pretty obvious those who wrote the docu-series did so with info from that docu. It also goes into the radiation spread and apparently we copped a pretty nice dose ourselves. The radiation maps are pretty scary, but may explain why there seems to be so much cancer around these days. You also (briefly) see the wounds. Green

I also found the part about the miners interesting. As of 2005 some were still alive and around 40 years old, yet all of them were disabled and had the function of an 80 year old.