8 Rods of Pu-239 (~6kg), enough for criticality if they touched, taken by Los Alamos workers to ‘show off’ production amounts to management

Oh sweet summer child. They didn't lose consciousness. They were seen as a rare research opportunity because they were so irradiated. They were kept alive and conscious by Doctors despite their plees to be killed because the data was too valuable. Their families begged for them to be allowed to die but no one listened. Those workers experienced every second of a slow, agonizing, and humiliating death so we could gain a little more data.

The 'good' news is that criticality incidents like this aren't at risk of nuclear explosion or meltdown. The results are horrifying, but limited to the people in the immediate vicinity.

In 1948, the Atomic Energy Commission—the predecessor to the Department of Energy—declassified a study on gamma radiation’s effects on the blood of workers at Los Alamos National Laboratory, a key site in the development of the atomic bomb. But the agency’s insurance branch moved to block its release. The reasoning? It could shatter employee morale and “place a powerful weapon in the hands” of attorneys, who might file a lawsuit on behalf of sick workers. By then the government had also conducted experiments in hospitals—including one near its nuclear facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee—that intentionally exposed patients to radiation without their knowledge.

jesus fucking christ

i mean the security code for US nuclear weapons was 00000000 for a very long time
https://www.msn.com/en-us/technology/cybersecurity/launch-code-for-us-nuclear-arsenal-was-00000000-until-1977/ar-AA1vxdKa