Tsutomu Yamaguchi's Life

On August 6, 1945, Tsutomu Yamaguchi traveled to work in Hiroshima. On his way, he saw a plane with a bomb falling from it. He immediately crouched on the ground and plugged his ears. He saw a white light flash before he heard the roar of the bomb. Yamaguchi was about a mile away from where the bomb hit, however, the bomb still picked him up and threw him. He passed by people on his way back to work whose bodies had been torn open and who were going to die. When he got to work the building was destroyed and all of his coworkers were dead. Yamaguchi needed to cross over rivers to get to the train station so he could check on his family in Nagasaki. Although, almost all the bridges had been destroyed from the bombing, he came to a river filled with bodies and used the bodies as a bridge. However, there was a gap and he could not cross the river. Further down the river was a rail road trestle. He walked across the one

beam left to get to the train station. He found his family to be safe in Nagasaki. The next day he arrived at head quarters and told his coworkers about the bomb. Unfortunately, none of them believed him until they all saw the same flash and heard the same roar of the bomb Yamaguchi heard in the first bombing. He climbed a hill to check on his neighborhood only to find out that it had been burned. He found his family safe in the shelter.
Yamaguchi’s health became very bad. His face began to swell, he lost his hair, he had boils, he began throwing up, he lost hearing in one ear and his arms looked like “whale meat.” Already being burned once, his arms had crusted with black and when the second bomb hit it knocked off all the black crusted part leaving a raw meat look on his arms.
The light from the bombs sent off intense gamma rays into the blood which took electrons right off of the water molecules. These gamma rays go after and attack the DNA by ripping electrons off. The DNA that gets damaged is the same DNA that is passed down to their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. The people exposed to this type of radiation caused so much damage they would be better off if they died. The radiation hit pregnant women very badly, some of the children were born with birth defects like having small heads. Years later, Yamaguchi recovered He and his wife decided they wanted to have more children, they had two girls, both born without any noticeable birth defects. they ended up having quite a few immune and health problems from their father being exposed to the radiation from the bomb twice and their mother once as they grew into adults. 60 years later the two girls are still alive. There is a gene called P53 that is like the “guardian angel” of genes. When it sees DNA that has been damaged, it rushes over to fix it. If both strands of DNA get damaged the cells have to “commit suicide” so they do not turn cancerous.

In this podcast Yamaguchi and his family related in a few ways to Chapter 3.

Yamaguchi reacted in the flight or fight situation. His reaction to the bomb falling was to drop and plug his ears to protect him as much as he could. He could have just froze, or ran away to flee from being in the bomb blast. Instead he knew he could better protect himself by crouching and plugging his ears. He could have ended up like many others that were in the bomb blast who had their bodies torn up and who staggered around and would not make it. When the second bomb blast happened, his first instinct was to pull himself up and go look for his family. This also was a flight or fight situation Yamaguchi was in. Even though he was hurt very badly from being in a bomb blast twice he still managed to pull himself up to check on his family. He found his family safe in a shelter, even though their neighborhood had been destroyed. Being in these bomb blasts increase Yamaguchi’s adrenaline rush. The adrenaline increased his heart rate developing the fight or flight

situation.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi and his family experienced some psychological implications. Yamaguchi experienced psychological implications that affected him physically. His face swelled, he began losing hair, boils appeared on his skin, he lost hearing in one ear, his arms were extremely red and raw and his nervous system was affected. He was also throwing up which affected his digestive system. One of the main psychological implications that Tsutomu Yamaguchi and his wife experienced was fear of the unknown future. With both of them being in the bomb blast, they feared the effect that it would have on their future children. Years later after Tsutomu Yamaguchi recovered, he and his wife decided to have children. With the fear that their children could be born with birth defects, they had two girls with no noticeable birth defects. It was years later as they became teenagers and adults that they began to have immune and health problems.