Types of Radioactive Exposure After A Nuclear Attack
In a nuclear explosion the human body can be irradiated by at least three processes. The first, and most major, cause of burns is due to thermal radiation and not caused by ionizing radiation.
- Thermal burns from infrared heat radiation, these would be the most common burn type experienced by personnel.
- If personnel become in direct contact with fallout, Beta burns from shallow ionizing beta radiation will be experienced, the largest particles(visible to the naked eye) in local fallout would be likely to have very high radioactivity because they would be deposited so soon after detonation; this fraction of the total fallout is called the prompt or local fallout fraction. It is likely that one such particle upon the skin would be able to cause a localized beta burn. This local fallout, termed Bikini snow in pacific island weapon tests, was experienced by the crew on the deck of the Lucky Dragon fishing ship following the explosion of the 15 megaton Shrimp device in the Castle Bravo event. However, these particular decay particles(beta particles) are very weakly penetrating and have a short range, requiring almost direct contact between fallout and personnel to be harmful.
- See also Nuclear Fallout
- Rarer still would be personnel who experience Radiation burns from highly penetrating gamma radiation. This would likely cause deep gamma penetration within the body, which would result in uniform whole body irradiation rather than only a surface burn. In cases of whole body gamma irradiation (c. 10 Gy) due to accidents involving medical product irradiators, some of the human subjects have developed injuries to their skin between the time of irradiation and death.
In the picture above, the normal clothing (a Kimono) that the woman was wearing attenuated the far reaching thermal radiation, the kimono however would have naturally been unable to attenuate any gamma radiation, if they were close enough to the weapon to have experienced any, and it would be likely that any such penetrating radiation effect would be evenly applied to her entire body. Beta burns would be likely all over the body if there was contact with fallout after the explosion, unlike thermal burns which are only ever on one side of the body, as heat radiation infrared naturally does not penetrate the human body. In addition, the pattern on her clothing has been burnt into the skin by the thermal radiation. This is because white fabric reflects more visible and infrared light than dark fabric. As a result, the skin underneath dark fabric is burned more than the skin covered by white clothing.
There is also the risk of internal radiation poisoning by ingestion of fallout particles, if one is in a fallout zone.
Read more about this topic: Effects Of Nuclear Explosions On Human Health
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