93-year old man survived both atomic bombs

Incredible. Still absolutely boggles my mind that the US did this.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29865222/

Japanese man is a double A-bomb survivor
He was in Hiroshima on business trip before returning home to Nagasaki

TOKYO - A 93-year-old Japanese man has become the first person certified as a survivor of both U.S. atomic bombings at the end of World War II, officials said Tuesday.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi had already been a certified "hibakusha," or radiation survivor, of the Aug. 9, 1945, atomic bombing in Nagasaki, but has now been confirmed as surviving the attack on Hiroshima three days earlier as well, city officials said.

Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He suffered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in the city. He then returned to his hometown of Nagasaki just in time for the second attack, city officials said.

but he did survive and has lived a long time, so maybe that's the silver lining.

or the luckiest.



Either way, I'd sure love to meet him.

...a British sailor from the early part of the 20th century, who survived the sinking of both the Titanic (1,500 dead) and, two years later, of the Empress of Ireland (1,000 dead). Those were the two worst maritime disasters of history up until that point.

It is said that Clarke then went on to serve on the Lusitiania and survived that sinking (1,200 dead) as well, but the latter bit appears to be an urban legend.

... on a far lesser scale, of course.

He owned a house that just happened to be smack in the middle of the battlefield of 1st Manassas (Bull Run) at the beginning of the American Civil War, decided "fuck that noise" and packed up his family and moved ... to Appomattox.

Proving that Hell exists on Earth, he lost his home there because he couldn't make the payments (guess he got a sub-prime loan) and eventually went to work for the Bureau of Internal Revenue, later the IRS.

There should be a support group ...

They'll be doing 24x7 coverage of the story - live from Aruba.