 This video is proudly sponsored by NordVPN. More about that later on. In the cold winter of December 2001, three villages in Lea, Georgia, found two strange objects, warm to the touch and apparently abandoned in the snow. Thinking they were heaters, the men used them to keep warm during the winter night. Little did they know that these unlabeled objects contained around 1,295 tB of radioactivity. Radioactive isotopes have been used for a variety of tasks, apart from the two obvious ones. For example, in radiotherapy, sterilization and industrial inspections. Today's subjects, like many orphaned sources on this channel, show the deadly ramifications of improper storage and disposal of radioisotopes. And again, like many other stories, it would be some unwitting locals that would fill the brunt of such improper disposal. With two needing specialist medical care in Paris and Moscow respectively, one of whom would sadly pass away. Thus I'm rating it here on the plainly difficult disaster scale. Georgia, the country not the state, is in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. The country's neighbours on its southern borders are Turkey, Azerbaijan and to the north is Russia. Lea is a village located approximately 320km northwest of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. We'll come back to Lea in a bit. But first we need to look at what a radioisotope thermoelectric generator is. The Soviet Union employed three types of radioisotope thermoelectric generators, also known as RTGs. Serium 144 with an activity of 740 tB, cesium 137 with an activity of between 1800 and 5500 tB, and finally the strontium 90 with an activity of up to 3700 tB, which is the subject of today's videos. In terms of nuclear energy, these generators are relatively simple in design, which makes sense where they would be just left in the wilderness somewhere, expected to reliably provide power day in, day out for years. In the most basic form an RTG turns heat into electricity by heating up a thermal battery, creating chemical energy, which then when discharged produces electric energy. Strontium 90 decays by beta emission, in doing so releasing significant heat needed for electrical generation. The isotope is well suited to this application due to having a half-life of around 28 years. Strontium 90 is also attractive as it is cheaper than plutonium 238 and is created during nuclear fission. The beta M type was a strontium 90 power generator, designed to last up to 20 years, and are intended for low power applications such as navigation or radio relays, which is what the ones at Lear were for. After manufacture the generator is capable of generating 10 watts of electricity from 250 watts of heat, with 1480 tB of radioactivity. The unit strontium 90 was contained within a tungsten shield. On top of the strontium 90 was the thermo battery, which generated the electricity. This was surrounded by a heat shield, which was then in turn surrounded by an outer radiation protection shield. Topping off the unit was a heat dissipator. At Lear, two RTGs were used as part of a chain of radio relays between the Kuduni hydroelectric plant and the Enguri dam, which were installed in the 1980s. This was for contact between the two plants during Kuduni dam's construction. Four substations were installed, each containing two RTGs between the two hydroelectric plants. Beta M's were usually installed in pairs and were capable of powering a lightbulb, which doesn't sound like a lot, however for radio relays not a large amount of electricity is needed. However it is needed for a long period of time. The generators totaling 8 were abandoned in situ. By the 1990s most of the generators were disassembled, exposing the radioactive sources and removed from the original locations. The first of the sources were discovered in 1999 and a second pair were later found on in the same year. A third pair would be found in 2001 and that would be near Lear. Right let's pause from Lear to talk about the sponsor of this video NordVPN. Sponsorships like this enable the channel to become more financially independent. Now if you look up various disasters and atomic incidents like me then a little bit of anonymity is pretty handy. Needs to say if I didn't have NordVPN and no data logging then I might be on some kind of disaster warning watch list. I've used several VPNs over the past couple of years and have enjoyed the protection they afford and I think Nord has the best user interface making it really easy to jump from one server to another. It also allows you to surf on public wifi securely without the fear of your personal information being stolen. Using NordVPN makes getting hacked almost impossible which you know is pretty good especially if you like most people bank online. You can also bypass region locking for movie streaming sites which is an annoying part of living in the UK as you miss out on so many great shows from the US. NordVPN works on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android. If you're interested there's currently a special cyber deal. Every purchase of a two-year plan will get you one additional month and a surprise gift. Go to www.nordvpn.com slash plainly difficult or use coupon code plainly difficult at checkout. This really helps out the channel by allowing me to purchase more research material, random props and as well as travel to more disaster sites when the UK lockdown ends. Let's get back to Leah. Now a lot of this timeline comes from the IAEA report into the incident and it goes into a lot more detail when I can fit into this video so it's worth checking out after watching. On the 2nd December three men residents of Leah were searching for firewood around 45 to 50km east of their home. While searching at around 6pm the men found two cylindrical objects lying on the ground melting all the snow within a 1m radius. The wet soil near the objects was causing steam. One of the men picked up the objects and dropped it almost immediately due to the heat. With the winter night drawing in the men decided to sleep in the woods making use of their new found sorted of heat. The two objects were manipulated to the campsite using wire to lift them, however at least two of the men had handled the items personally. A fire was set up for dinner and the men sheltered in for the night. After dinner the men drank some vodka but felt unusually sick and dizzy. Within 30 minutes all three men had vomited. This was after a couple of hours of exposure to the mysterious objects. The vomiting lasted for the remainder of the night and by the morning the three exhausted men only collected half of the wood intended into their truck and made their way back to Leah leaving the two devices behind. The first of the men reported to the doctors a day after of repeated diarrhea on the fourth. He didn't mention to the doctor the strange object that he had encountered instead getting treated for intoxication. Eight days post-exposure another man reported to the doctor after developing urythma a burning sensation and odema on the right hand leaving one of his hands immobile. By the 17th of December all three men had developed some kind of skin irritation on either their backs or hands. Five days later all patients were hospitalized in Zugdidi, Georgia. The three patients were diagnosed with acute radiation syndrome and the case was reported to the emergency medical center in Tbilisi. A day later on the 23rd of December all three were transferred to the capital city but for now we'll put their story on pause and look at the recovery operations. Also on the 23rd of December the Georgian authorities attempted to locate the two objects that had caused the ARS symptoms in the patients. This did not yield results as the forest roads had become impassable due to the worsening weather condition. Not working from a background of experience with orphaned sources the Georgian government requested assistance for the removal activities from the IAEA. A second attempt a few days later on the 29th was successful and initial investigations into the condition of the two sources was undertaken. They were found just off a dirt track 28 kilometers from Lia with the immediate vicinity blocked off by boulders from a landslide. Now that they were located in order to recover the sources several things had to be prepared but the next few weeks the following was arranged. A container fabricated locally made of lead 27 centimeters thick 90 centimeters high weighing in at 5.5 tons. Special steel remote handling tools and tools to collect the radioactive sources were manufactured an old army truck to transport containers adapted and 26 soldiers were trained to recover the radioactive sources. Not only that but the recovery attempt needed food supplies for two days fuel for 12 vehicles and field accommodation for up to 50 people. The boulders and rocks had acted as a partial shield and as such initial recordings of radiation were at 1.3 millisieverts an hour. This was handy for the recovery team as it allowed them more time to prepare the area for extraction. A maximum dose was set to be 10 millisieverts per member of the recovery crew. Between the second and third of February 2002 the recovery operation was undertaken. After arriving at the site preparatory work and measurements took around 30 minutes. The actual recovery only took 20 minutes. That was from the first movement to loading into the containment vessel. The truck took around 3.5 hours to return to the nearest village. As you can see from these pictures the roads were hardly a newly laid motorway. The highest dose rate for the recovery team was recorded at 1160 microsieverts. Measurements above the container with the lid off after recovery was recorded at 4.6 severts an hour. After all the container caps were placed on the top the dose rate was reduced to 12 to 14 microsieverts an hour a safe transportation limit. Right let's get back to the victims of the incident. On the 23rd of January 2002 the first patient was discharged from hospital care under outpatient supervision. His exposure was significantly less and resulted in mainly injuries to his hands and arms. For the remaining two the journey would be long and painful involving specialist care far away from home in Liya with only one making it back. The two remaining patients had severe burns on their backs as they had slept up against the sources leading to an increase in exposure. On the 31st of January the IAEA was contacted for advice on specialist treatment for the two remaining victims. This resulted in one being admitted to the Institute of Biophysics of the Burner Zion Federal Medical Biophysical Center in Moscow and the other admitted to the Burned Treatment Center of the Percy Military Training Hospital in Paris for further treatment. The patient said the Paris was in relatively good health at the time of the exposure. The burn sections of his body luckily didn't have too deep necrosis. The affected area more than 8% of his total body surface had received more than 20 to 25 greys. It would take five skin grafts and multiple necrotomies to reach a favorable recovery. Over 502 days after exposure multiple skin grafts and being treated for coutaneous radiation syndrome the second patient was discharged from Paris in March 2003. The patient sent to Russia was estimated to have received a total dose of radiation to the left side of his back at around 25 to 35 greys. The burn area was most of the patient's back leaving scarring and blistering eventually leading to necrosis. Several attempts at skin grafts were undertaken each time resulting in failure to acclimatize and even more necrosis of the skin, necessitating removal of the dead skin leading to the requirement of more skin grafts. After each attempt the affected area increased after 893 days post exposure and experiencing a deteriorating condition and multiple traumatic surgeries the patient died due to cardiac arrest. The patient's chances of survival were greatly reduced due to him suffering from TB at the time of his exposure delaying treatment of the ARS. The incident like many other orphaned sources showed the risks of improperly disposed radioactive items. What is worrying about Leah is that at the time of the IAEA report into the incident only six of the eight original Beta-M radioisotope thermoelectric generators have been located meaning two more lay waiting to be discovered. It is thought by the IAEA that at least 1,000 such RTGs are in Russia or any of the ex-Soviet Union countries. Many past their working life albeit useless for original purpose they are still deadly if improperly handled. Each one left out in a wilderness somewhere is another Leah waiting to happen. Thank you to NordVPN for the sponsorship. If you're interested there's currently a special cyber deal. Every purchase of a two-year plan will get you one additional month and a surprise gift. Go to www.nordvpn.com slash plainlydifficult or use coupon code plainlydifficult at checkout. And all that's left to say is thank you for watching.