--- title: Nuclear Weapon Deaths: The Strange Story of those Killed in Peacetime description: Seventy years ago, a young physicist made a tragic mistake canonical: https://time.com/3964701/atomic-bomb-deaths-peacetime/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-08-21T11:00:26.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:02:24.267Z article:section: History og:title: Nuclear Weapon Deaths: The Strange Story of those Killed in Peacetime og:description: Seventy years ago, a young physicist made a tragic mistake og:url: https://time.com/3964701/atomic-bomb-deaths-peacetime/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2acdb43208677c75/69885ba93c163925b3458ea7/alamos.jpeg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: LOS ALAMOS GATE og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Nuclear Weapon Deaths: The Strange Story of those Killed in Peacetime twitter:description: Seventy years ago, a young physicist made a tragic mistake twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2acdb43208677c75/69885ba93c163925b3458ea7/alamos.jpeg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Strange Story of the First People to Die From Nuclear Weapons During Peacetime ## Video: TIME Covers: 47 Years of War and Hope in the Middle East [Watch (HLS stream): TIME Covers: 47 Years of War and Hope in the Middle East](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/r3PKM6pC.m3u8) (1:20)  _Published 2014-08-07. TIME Covers: 47 Years of War and Hope in the Middle East_  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Aug 21, 2015 11:00 AM UTC  A Feb. 25,1955 view of the well-guarded Los Alamos, N.M. birthplace of the A-bomb and other thermonuclear weapons. A Feb. 25,1955 view of the well-guarded Los Alamos, N.M. birthplace of the A-bomb and other thermonuclear weapons.AP  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Aug 21, 2015 11:00 AM UTC The first wartime deaths from nuclear weaponry were vast in number and world-changing in scope. The first peacetime deaths from that same technology were far quieter incidents, free of violence but still illustrative of the awful power of the bomb. The physicist Louis Slotin was part of the team that figured out how much nuclear material (plutonium and uranium) would be needed for the bombs used at the end of World War II. And as Richard L. Miller explained in his 1986 book [_Under the Cloud_](https://books.google.com/books?id=adI-6jRDipgC&pg=PA68&dq=harry+daghlian&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAWoVChMIpZjBsLTqxgIVCo-ACh377Anv#v=onepage&q=harry%20daghlian&f=false)_,_ Slotin wanted to see his work through to the end by accompanying the pilots who dropped the bomb, but he wasn’t given permission. Frustrated, he decided to go on vacation instead and leave his young assistant, Harry Daghlian, to continue his experiments while he was away. On Aug. 21, 1945, Daghlian was stacking tungsten carbide bricks as a reflector around a plutonium core, according to a Los Alamos [report](http://www.orau.org/ptp/Library/accidents/la-13638.pdf) on nuclear accidents. The idea was that the tungsten would reflect neutrons, meaning that you’d need less plutonium to get a nuclear reaction going. Daghlian’s lab instruments showed him that the next tungsten brick he added to the stack would bring the experiment to a critical point (ie. the reaction would begin). He moved to take the brick away, but his hand slipped and it fell into the middle of the stack. Though he quickly took the assembly apart, it was too late. According to the [American Physical Society](http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201405/physicshistory.cfm), Daghlian’s skin turned red and began to peel off as his gastrointestinal system started to fail. He died that September. In a cruel twist, the next person to be killed by peacetime atomic science, in a similar mishap the next year, was Louis Slotin. After that death, TIME (misidentifying Slotin as “the first peacetime victim of nuclear fission”) [explained](http://time.com/vault/issue/1946-06-10/page/94/) the science behind such accidents: --- > “” --- Slotin suffered radiation burns while breaking apart the materials. According to a [letter](http://time.com/vault/issue/1946-07-01/page/14/) to the editor about that article, Slotin knew that he was sure to die within days but still returned to the lab to explain his work to the staff, “not wanting any knowledge to die with him.” As for that staff, they had learned from the mistakes of those before them and established new safety protocols. ### Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Photos From the Ruins  Not published in LIFE. Urakami Cathedral (Roman Catholic), Nagasaki, September, 1945. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Nagasaki, September, 1945. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hiroshima streetcar, September, 1945. J. R. Eyerman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Nagasaki, Japan, September 1945. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. A photo album, pieces of pottery, a pair of scissors - shards of life strewn on the ground in Nagasaki, 1945. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  From notes by LIFE's Bernard Hoffman to the magazine's long-time picture editor, Wilson Hicks, in New York, September 1945. Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hiroshima, 1945. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Nagasaki, 1945, a few months after an American B-29 dropped an atomic bomb, codenamed "Fat Man," on the city. Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. The landscape around Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki, September, 1945. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  From notes by LIFE's Bernard Hoffman to the magazine's long-time picture editor, Wilson Hicks, in New York, September 1945. Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Neighborhood reduced to rubble by atomic bomb blast, Hiroshima, 1945. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Bust in front of destroyed cathedral two miles from the atomic bomb detonation site, Nagasaki, Japan, 1945. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hiroshima, 1945, two months after the August 6 bombing. Bernard Hoffman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Nagasaki, 1945. Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Two women pay respects at a ruined cemetery, Nagasaki, 1945. Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hiroshima, September, 1945. J.R. 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