(Probably too late to post…I started typing before I left for work, and had to set it down for a few hours. Humbug.)
Okay, we’ve had two combat uses of nuclear weapons, and I can’t count how many above-ground nuclear tests…my question is, was/has anyone ever been permenantly blinded by the atomic “flash” of one of these blasts, and if so, how many?
And, for the purposes of my question, I’m only counted “blinded and survived.” If the only people who’d be exposed to a flash strong enough to be blinded permenantly are the same ones who surely be vaporized, incinerated, blown apart, or suffer unquestionably fatal radiation exposure, I wouldn’t include them in a list of people with a lifelong handicap.
This article doesn’t have any facts about specific cases of permanent blinding, however it does argue that it’s possible to be permanently blinded without being in the zone where you would also certainly die.
I’ve seen a book of photographs that included blinded Hiroshima/Nagasaki survivors. Severe cataracts develop with a dose exceeding approximately 200-300 rem. Young people with completely clouded from the cataracts. This is a delayed reaction to the radiation, you don’t go blind immediately, can take months/years. Cataracts are correctable now, don’t know if that surgery was available then, or how many could afford treatment.
I’m seeing lots of articles mentioning high rates of radiation induced cataracts, but not the actual numbers.
Well, on this page [Note, disturbing images] - Fogonazos: Hiroshima, the pictures they didn't want us to see - is a picture of a radiation induced cataract.
In answer to the question: “Is it possible to create a comic book-type flashlight so bright the briefest exposure would cause permanent blindness?”
Cecil replied:
No info on whether these unfortunates had also taken enough radiation damage to kill them, or whether they survived, so I don’t know if it quite meets the OP’s question.
Surprisingly, examples of what the OP presumably had in mind - victims who were immediately permanently blinded, but managed to survive - were probably extremely rare at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Three types of blindness were reported, but amongst those who suvived beyond the first few days the symptoms were either temporary or not immediate.
Hersey’s image is so vivid and horrifying that it’s become one of the most repeated in discussions of the effects of nuclear attacks. But those with that severity of eye injuries must have all died fairly quickly, since no such injuries seem to have been reported amongst the survivors. These particular victims were amongst the “walking dead”. How many cases there were it’s impossible to say.
Amongst those who survived, there is a proportion who sustained temporary “flash blindness”, which persisted for anything up to hours. This was an extreme version of being blinded by a bright light. However terrifying at the time, this doesn’t seem to have led to any widespread permanent damage to their eyes - Glasstone and Dolen mention that studies had only ever found one instance of permanent retinal damage amongst the victims.
Where that Time article probably goes wrong is in assuming that people could stare at the flash. They didn’t. As an automatic reflex, those with enough time to do so snapped their eyelids shut very quickly. That did have the consequence that an extremely common eye injury was flash burns on the eyelids. The eyes themselves were protected, but eyelids are more vulnerable than skin in general and that led to the burns on them being especially nasty.
The long-term form of blindness was cataracts, as mentioned by nofloyd, which developed over a period of years afterwards. There may also have been a number of effects involved other than radiation exposure: trauma to the eyeball, damage from the optical wavelengths and blast debris have all been considered. Incidentally, it was already known by 1945 that nuclear physicists were prone to radiation-induced cataracts.
Eye injuries at Hiroshima and Nagasaki are discussed in medical and statistical detail in the usual standard overviews of the physical and biological damage: Glasstone and Dolen and the Japanese summary Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Iwanami Shoten, 1979; Hutchinson, 1981).
About 30 years ago I saw a slide show of post-atom bomb pictures which included the image of a human retina with a scar in the shape of the iconic “mushroom cloud” (inverted, of course, because that’s how an image hits the retina). Presumably that would indicate permanent damage. I don’t know, however, if that person was a long term survivor or not, nor do I know if the blindness was total or if some of the non-scarred retina regained any function.
Curious to know how a mushroom cloud would be burnt onto the retina, the cloud would form a few seconds after the flash so what would cause that image to be burned in there.
I’d venture a guess that if you stared at a suitably incandescent cloud of glowing vapor it could have that effect, especially if your eyes were open for a prolonged period of time. Sort of like staring into the sun. Aren’t parts of the cloud very high temperature? Come to think of it, that delay between flash and retina burn hadn’t occurred to me before this.
The only other thing I could think of would be a gap between buildings in a V shape like this:
_/
might make an image on a retina that could be mistaken for a “mushroom cloud”, having a rough shape similarity.
Mushroom clouds really aren’t all that bright at all. Quite the opposite.
However, that a particular survivor - and anyone who had their retina photographed is going to count as one; on-one was doing such investigations on the masses of dead bodies - had retinal damage probably counts as unusual, rather than startling. It’s entirely possible that individual cases were missed - or overlooked - by Glasstone and Dolen in their summary that I cited. However, given the wider literature, with its rather different biases, its unlikely that there’s a large population of victims with such damage.
My off-the-cuff guess - without having previous come across the alleged evidence - is that there may have been a survivor with a scar on their retina that happens to look like a mushroom cloud.
