#21
On September 30, 1999, Hisashi Ouchi was exposed to the highest dose of nuclear radiation in human history. A 35-year-old lab technician at the nuclear plant in Tokaimura, Japan, Ouchi was mixing a uranium solution by hand directly over an open container when he accidentally poured in too much uranium, immediately causing a violent explosion.
For the next 83 days, Ouchi suffered unimaginable agony as the radiation worked its way through his body, obliterating his DNA and causing his skin to melt off and his eyes to weep blood before he finally died. And though he begged for death, doctors refused to listen and kept him alive against his will for nearly three excruciating months.
#22
Former NFL star Pat Tillman was hailed as a hero in 2004 after he was "killed by the Taliban." But it was a lie — he'd been killed by friendly fire. And while the shooting has since been described as accidental, some believe it was intentionally planned by the U.S. Army.
Not only was Tillman shot three times in the head, but he was also shot at close range and it was later determined that the Army had lied about his unit being ambushed by the enemy. Eerily, all of Tillman's personal items had been burned — including his uniform and private journals. On top of that, rumors had surfaced that he was about to go public about his opposition to the invasion of Iraq and the War on Terror with a televised meeting with Noam Chomsky. But this meeting would never happen.
#23
“They couldn’t get shoes on him because his feet had swelled up,” she recalled. “They had to cut up the formal wear, too, because they couldn’t get it on him, there wasn’t a whole body to put it on.”
In 1986, firefighter Vasily Ignatenko heroically responded to the radioactive fires caused by the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station explosion. He put most of the fires out in a couple of hours, but spend far too long near the radiation. After several weeks of suffering, he would die from his exposure. After his death, Ignatenko's body was so radioactive, he had to be buried under layers of zinc and concrete in order to protect the public from his corpse.
#24
In 1989, Billy Idol threw a three-week-long party in his penthouse at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok. All the sex, drugs, and property damage eventually prompted the hotel to hit Idol with a $250,000 bill.
But when he still refused to leave, the military had to be called in to corral the British rocker. Idol was shot with a tranquilizer dart and hauled out on a stretcher before he would finally stop partying.
Another feature of documentaries and the posts shared on this Facebook page are the opportunities to give faces to names. As exciting as podcasts and books are, it’s nice to have visual elements alongside the stories. A photo really is worth a thousand words and can add so much to a compelling story. These images can also help audiences better understand worlds they think they know. For example, unflattering and heartbreaking images of late celebrities right before they passed are very different from the images of them typically shown in the media. Of course, it’s great to celebrate how they were at their best, but especially when tackling topics like addiction, audiences should see the reality of a situation.
#25
Only a few will remember him
#26
Near the end of his life, Bob Marley was told by a doctor that he had "more cancer in him than I've seen with a live human being," and that he only had a few months to live, so "he might as well go back out on the road and die there."
Three years earlier, the reggae icon had been diagnosed with melanoma under his toenail in 1977. Doctors removed the nail and the nail bed, but Marley refused to have the toe itself amputated to stop the spread of the disease, insisting that it violated his Rastafarian religious beliefs. By 1980, the cancer had spread throughout his body, infecting his liver, lungs, and even his brain. Marley played his last show on September 30, 1980, in Pittsburgh, performing Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust" during the soundcheck to the bemusement of his roadies, who didn't know anything was wrong. He died eight months later at the age of 36.
#27
“4 days ago, a group of friends and I went to Murree together. We were having a walk through the Murree Hills at 2 or 3am and this happened. All of us were together. One friend asked to take a group photo of us, and took it with flash because there was low to zero lighting. When i went through my pictures later on, I was shocked to see a person standing right behind one of my friends. He had a pale white face and if you close in on his legs you can see it look as if it is not of human. None of us knew the person 3rd from the left.”
#28
When Joe Pichler was just six years old, he made his acting breakthrough with a commercial for a Seattle department store. Soon after, he moved to Los Angeles, where he landed a part in 1999's "Varsity Blues" before earning a leading role in two installments of the "Beethoven" franchise.
Pichler then moved back to his hometown of Bremerton, Washington to attend high school and had plans to return to Hollywood after he had his braces removed — but he never got the chance. In the early morning hours of January 5, 2006, Pichler mysteriously vanished, and police have been unable to solve his disappearance to this day.
#29
In 1993, lawyer Garry Hoy fell 24 floors to his death while demonstrating the tensile strength of his office windows to a group of visiting law students. Far from being an unusual incident, body-checking window safety was his signature - and fatal - move.
Hoy's regular practice of hurling himself at window panels in front of onlookers and harmlessly bouncing off ended disastrously when it accidentally popped the glass out of its frame and sent "one of the best and brightest" lawyers plunging from the skyscraper.
#30
Between 2000 and 2003, biologist Amie Huguenard spent three summers in Alaska with her boyfriend Timothy Treadwell studying and filming grizzly bears. Treadwell, who was better known as the "Grizzly Man," had met Huguenard during a book tour in 1996 and the pair had instantly bonded over their love of animals. But then, in October 2003, the couple was brutally mauled and eaten by a half-ton bear that attacked them at their camp. And the audio of their horrifying final moments was captured on tape.
