Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster

Here, Higginbotham steps away from the scientists’ and soldiers’ efforts to check in on the evacuated residents of Pripyat. By the Tuesday following the explosion, residents like Natalia Yuvchenko—told by authorities they will only be gone for two or three days—are running out of money and clean clothes. Desperate to locate her husband, Natalia gathers her young son Kirill and sets out for Moldova where her parents live. Through her parents’ political connections, Natalia learns that Yuvchenko is at the closely-guarded Hospital Six in Moscow. Those same connections allow Natalia to enter the hospital while so many other patients’ loved ones remain kept out by armed guards.

Of the 207 men and women admitted to the hospital after the explosion, 115 receive acute radiation syndrome diagnoses, and 10 will most likely die. When Natalia finally finds Yuvchenko, he looks normal and healthy aside from a shaved head; the doctors shave the patients heads so that their hair falling out doesn’t alarm them. While those exposed to acute radiation often exhibit symptoms like vomiting in the immediate aftermath of the exposure, the disease enters a latency period that can last for days or even weeks. This is why Yuvchenko looks and feels okay at the moment, as do Toptunov, Akimov, and Lieutenant Pravik, all of whom are receiving treatment in Hospital Six.