Gone Fission

Way to Die #692

Gone Fission

Name of the death is a pun on "Gone fishing", "One vision", and "Fission" from the reaction term "nuclear fission"

Introcard
Deathcard

"Nuclear terrorism is no joke, but little did Somad and Siraki know that they were just one burp away from becoming weapons of gas destruction."

Information

Date

November 11, 2009

Location

Yemen

Episode this death was featured in

Sudden Death

Deaths

Plot[]

Somad and Siraki were two wannabe terrorists and mass murderers who construct a plutonium nuclear bomb, which is bad news. The good news about them is that they are more of a threat to themselves than they are to the rest of the world. Before working, Siraki catches Somad with his headphones and Somad ignores him (because the song he is listening to is "Toxic" by Britney Spears, his favorite celebrity). Again, Siraki tells Somad to take his headphones off and he finally does as he was told. They finally get to work. What they didn't know is that the plutonium nuclear core is nicknamed "The Demon Core", because several scientists attempting to experiment on it died afterwards.

Just as Somad was about to place the last tungsten carbide brick for a test on the plutonium core, he burped after eating a camel burger, which caused him to fumble the brick as it made brief contact with the core. An incredible bright blue light flashed and exposed Somad and Siraki to a massive surge of radiation, comparable to being within a mile of Nagasaki's ground zero, causing both of them to fall unconscious and start vomiting. They were so overcome with radiation, they couldn't even crawl out of the lab. Within a few hours, the surge destroys their immune systems and both men are overcome with extreme nausea and become bedridden, leaving them extremely fatigued and their muscles to be eaten away, and eventually, within 48 hours, their lungs are filled with fluid, killing them from eventual asphyxiation/suffocation by bacterial pneumonia.

Transcript[]

(the segment begins with the introcard, showing Somad in a lab inside of a Yemeni hospital as the words "Date: November 11, 2009" and "Location: Yemen" are typed out around it, then it cuts to a footage of terrorists performing their regime which are not part of the story to any extent)

Narrator: One of the world's greatest fears is that a group of fanatic terrorists will build the ultimate weapon and hold the world hostage..

(Shows a picture of a nuclear blast with a explosion in the background; flashback to two scientists working on a metal nuclear sphere in a laboratory inside of a Yemeni hospital, Somad and Siraki)

Narrator: Somad and Siraki were looking to make a name for themselves on the global terrorist circuit. The bad news was they had just come up with enough fissionable material to build a small nuke. The good news?

Somad (singing to himself): I like it..

Narrator: These guys were more of a threat to themselves then they were to the rest of the world.

Siraki: Somad!

Somad: (What?)

Siraki: (Take off your headphones right now!)

Somad: (But it's Britney Spears.)

Siraki: (Take them off!)

(Somad takes the headphones off, and they continue working)

Narrator: Today, Somad and Siraki were testing the plutonium core. What they didn't know was that this was nicknamed.. "The Demon Core", because it had killed several scientists that had attempted it sixty years earlier.

(They place three tungsten bricks around the core)

Narrator: " The Demon Core" experiment is extremely dangerous. You surround the plutonium core with tungsten carbide bricks to reflect neutrons. This makes the core more reactive. If the bricks touch the core, it could go critical, which means that a blast of harmful radiation gets released into the atmosphere. Just as Somad was about to place the last tungsten brick in place, the camel burger that he ate for lunch came back to haunt him.

(Somad burps, causing him to stumble a bit and lose balance; he drops the brick on the core, and they are exposed to a blue radiation flash)

Narrator: A burp caused him to fumble the brick. The brick then made brief contact with the core; a blue flash exposed Somad and Siraki to as much radiation as anyone standing within a mile of ground zero at Nagasaki.

(Somad and Siraki puke as they writhe on the ground in pain and are bedridden for the next two days)

Narrator: The contamination was so great, they never made it out of the lab. Within a few hours, they were overcome with nausea. Soon after that, they were bedridden with extreme fatigue, and they're muscles had atrophied. The cells in their skin were dying, and within 48 hours, the wannabe terrorists were dead.

(the two lay dead on their beds; cut to CGI of their exposure to the radiation, destroying the bone marrow and the white blood cells, then eventually cuts to the lungs being filled with fluid to indicate suffocation/asphyxiation by bacterial pneumonia)

Dr. David Rainer: Large radiation exposures, such as this, damages the immune system (disappears while continuing his explanation) and cannot produce white blood cells. This renders the immune system useless. The patient is then susceptible to a number of pathogens. In this case, the patients developed bacterial pneumonia, their lungs (appears again while finishing his explanation of the cause of death as the segment cuts to the final two scenes of Somad and Siraki's deaths before the recap) eventually filled up with large amounts of secretion, and they essentially asphyxiated.

(recap)

Narrator: Nuclear terrorism is no joke, but little did Somad and Siraki know, that they were just one burp away from becoming weapons of gas destruction.

(Somad, after burping, inadvertently loses balance and fumbles the last tungsten carbide brick, causing him to accidentally complete the Demon Core experiment and leave himself and Siraki stunned by the blue flash of massive radiation as they fall to the ground, then cuts to the end result 48 hours after the incident where they lie dead on their beds outside the lab with a closeup on Siraki's corpse and a concurrently blurred view of Somad's corpse. Audibly, a burp sound effect can be heard in this one)

(the segment ends with the deathcard showing the usual shot of Somad and Siraki lying dead in their beds before the words "Way To Die #692" and "Gone Fission" appear around it)

Cast and Interviewees[]

Mershad Torabi - Somad (lead: intended victim)
Payam Banifaz - Siraki (lead: intended victim)
Dr. David Rainer - Radiologist

Description[]

Description as seen on Spike TV's website

"An Iranian scientist working to develop weapons of mass destruction exposes himself to a lethal dose of radiation when he accidentally drops a brick of tungsten onto plutonium"

Trivia[]

In 1945, Scientist Harry K. Daghlian, Jr. accidentally dropped a brick of tungsten carbide onto a sphere of plutonium (known as the Demon core) while working on the Manhattan Project. This caused the plutonium to come to critical; Harry died of radiation poisoning, becoming the first person to die in a critical accident. A year later (in 1946), Louis Slotin, a chemist and physicist, died of radiation poisoning after being exposed to lethal amounts of ionizing radiation from the same core, what went critical after a screwdriver he was using to separate the halves of the spherical beryllium reflector slipped. A similar incident happened in Japan in 1999, where Hisashi Ouchi, Masato Shinohara and Yutaka Yokokawa were pouring buckets of chemicals into a breeder reactor without measuring the chemicals beforehand, when they were dosed with massive amounts of radiation. Hisashi was dosed with 17 Sv, more than three times the lethal limit of radiation, and suffered a drawn-out death that lasted over three months, ultimately resulting in most of his body's internal tissues sloughing off.
This is the only death to take place in Yemen.
- Also, this is the first of the only two deaths to not feature a death of a practical terrorist, but instead, it's of a wannabe terrorist, the second and final one goes to Dead Kacynski. However, unlike in Dead Kacynski where the wannabe terrorist features plans on being a threat to the public, the two wannabe terrorists featured here are considered more of a threat to themselves than they are to the rest of the world, making this segment disqualified from being put in the "Hate Sinks" and "Complete Monster/Pure Evil" categories.
The ending of this death is similar to Gut Busted in that the victim "burps" after he dies.
This is one of the deaths that does not have the area of the country specified in the location besides the country itself.
This is the only death to feature an actual song by a famous artist (in this case, Britney Spears).
The description of this segment incorrectly states there was only one Iranian scientist instead of 2 Yemeni scientists.
This death takes place on a same day as Sun Burnt.
This is also the second terrorist-related death to end with every single person dying in it (not counting the terrorists featured at the beginning of the story which are only part of a footage and not in the actual part of the story itself) after Tali-Bombed. The third and final instance to have this occurrence is in HUMMUS AMONG US.

Goofs[]

Somad was blinking if you look closely, despite the fact that he supposedly died.
Just after Somad and Siraki were taken out of the lab in the Yemeni hospital they were working at, they were placed on their beds while concurrently being stripped of their blue hazmat radiation suits, but noticeably, while Somad was wearing his complete inside sleepwear all along, Siraki on the other hand was initially shirtless, though his inside sleepwear shirt suddenly appeared over him as the process of them dying had gone from bad to worse.

Segment Nicknames[]

WWM'D (Spike TV; a pun on "WMD", which is an abbreviation of "weapons of mass destruction" which Somad and Siraki try to create one)
Demon Cored
Nuclear Radia-shunned (a pun on one of the segment's relevant elements "Nuclear radiation")
New-kill-er Fission (another pun on one of the segment's relevant elements, "Nuclear fission")