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Charged proton beam

Searing the flesh

Charring the bone

Scarring the brain

Anatoli Bugorski

Checking failing equipment

At the U-70

Russia's strongest synchrotron

Stuck his head in the beam

Due to safety malfunctions

Though he felt no pain, he saw

A light brighter than a thousand suns

Nerves divided, his head began to swell

Left ear deaf, save a constant ringing

Radiated skin began to peel

From the back and the front it began to reveal

The path through with the beam burned

Immediately he fled the testing chamber

Urgently he ran to his colleagues

Terrified, he knew what fate awaited

Taken to a clinic to be observed

His imminent death was expected

But as he lingered, his wounds did heal

He was released, though seizures plague him still

Charged proton beam

Searing the flesh

Charring the bone

Scarring the brain

Seventy billion electron volts

Two hundred thousand rads

Beamed into the cranium

Traveling through occipital bone

Temporal lobe, the middle ear

Jaw fossa, and nasal tissue

Three hundred thousand rads exit

Due to cranial scattering

A surely fatal accident merely freezes the face

He continued to work on the beam that tore right through his brain