20 Survival Stories That Put Human Endurance in Another Light

Nothing exploded on July 13, 1978. There was no loud warning, no pain, and no dramatic collapse in the laboratory. Soviet physicist Anatoli Bugorski simply saw an intense flash while inspecting malfunctioning equipment at the U-70 particle accelerator in Protvino. Several safety systems had failed, placing his head directly in the path of a high-energy proton beam. It entered through the back of his skull, crossed brain tissue and his left middle ear, then exited near his nose.