Nuked Twice And Survived Poem by Paul Hartal

On August 6,1945, the US Air Force
dripped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city
Hiroshima. The blast killed an
an estimated 70,000 people and injured
an untold number of others.
Also, many died later of cancer
associated with the radiation emitted by
the atomic detonation.
The nuclear explosion scorched the city
and Hiroshima became a gigantic pile of irradiated rubble.

Three days later a US Air Force bomber dropped
another atomic bomb on the Japabese city Nagasaki.
About 40,000 people died in the blast and inferno and some
25000 were injured.

Still, there were people
who miraculously survived the nuclear bombings,
even in the vicinity of the epicenter.
Tsutomu Yamagochi was one of them.
Yamagochi was a 29 year old
naval engineer in Hiroshima who was about 2 miles
from ground zero but came out alive of the atomic blast.
The detonation lifted him into the air and tossed him
into a nearby potato field. He suffered severe skin
and ear drum injuries but survived.

Yamagochi's story sounds even more incredible
because after the nuclear attack, seeking safety,
he escaped from Hiroshima
to Nagasaki, where three days later, the second atomic bomb
exploded.
He was 3 kilometers from ground zero
when the blast occurred.
Thus, he outlived two nuclear bomb attacks
and died 65 years later in 2010, aged 93.

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