Chernobylites

So I've been reading Voices from Chernobyl and let me just say its quite depressing. When I began reading the book I thought I was in the first chapter when in fact I was only in the prologue. As I read the prologue it was so saddening and depressing that I nearly dropped the book right then and there. The prologue was from one of the survivors of the Chernobyl accident and she talked of her husband and what happened that night and the 14 days after. It all started when her husband got called to the reactor thinking it was only just a fire. Her husband and several other fireman all went on the call. None of them took protective gear as they thought it would be just an ordinary fire. When they arrived at the reactor they had already started to soak up radiation. They were there for hours trying to put the fire out. 400 levels of radiation is lethal to a human being. Her husband came out of the reactor with 1600 rads. He came out a living reactor. All of the men who were at the reactor were taken to a hospital where they were kept from anyone and everyone to try and contain the large amount of radiation they had absorbed. The wives of all these men were going chaotic in worry as the military would not allow them to see their husbands. The men were taken to Moscow where they were contained in a hospital of their own. She went to Moscow to find her husband. When she finally found him after asking a guard who was shocked to see that she knew about the radiation patients she found that her husband's skin was all puffed up and he looked like a balloon. He warned her to keep her distance as did the nurses. The doctors would not allow her to stay with him for the night so she went and spent the day with his parents. She came back the next day and saw that his skin had shrunk back to somewhat normal. He looked as though we was a burn victim. The warden questioned her before she was allowed to see him. "Do you have any children?" She had to say yes, but she had to say she had more than one or they wouldn't let her see him. "Yes a boy and a girl," she replied. The warden allows her to visit her husband. The doctors say that when a patient has absorbed this many rads  they have a maximum of 14 days to live. She spends those days at his side as much as possible. She watches as her husband's skin slowly decays before her very eyes. His skin begins to soften to the point where she must cut her nails down until she bleeds so she doesn't cut him. His skin begins to tear and bleed from simple things such as the folds in the bed sheets. She holds his hand while he sleeps and when he releases his hand there is skin left on her hand that doesn't belong to her. Her husband goes through excruciating pain as he deteriorates more and more everyday. He screams her name every time she is not there. She lacks so much sleep that her legs turn blue and she can barely walk. When she finally thinks she has a break she goes to her room and lays down on the floor because its too painful to lay on the bed. After only moments a nurse comes in and beckons her to go to him as he calls her name vigorously. The other fireman that are family friends of  her and her husband are slowly dying as well and when the wives of those firemen ask her to attend the funeral she agrees. She comes back from the funeral and asks the nurse how hes doing and she replies "He died fifteen minutes ago." She bursts into tears and his last words were him calling her name. They bury him in a lead coffin and deeper in the ground than normal. She was pregnant all the entire time she was with him. While she visits his grave one afternoon she goes into labor. The baby arrives right there at his grave. Due to the large amount of radiation the baby absorbed it dies 2 hours later. She blames herself for killing the child. She was saved because the baby took all the radiation. Only after 6 years could she allow herself to remarry and have a healthy child. The child now attends school and gets good grades. She is happy but forever sad.