Uh, with all due respect, I wouldn't put too much faith in that girl's (elena) knowledge of radiation dosimetry.

She makes it sound like the helicopter pilots were killed by being irradiated with gamma radiation. They crashed. The mortality rate from those irradiated with extremely high gamma and beta doses was a little over 1 percent. Gamma radiation sounds super scary and its range *is* scary, but it is such a high energy particle that most passes through your body harmlessly. The scary stuff is beta-emitting particles(when inhaled or ingested).

Did anyone hear that the cancer rate of the exposed emergency workers and inhabitants of Bryansk (the most radiation contaminated area)were 15 percent and 5 percent lower, respectively, than the general population? That's not sexy data, and you'll never hear it on the news at 10.

Chernobyl was a worst-case scenario nuclear disaster, and less than 100 people died directly from it. The 4,000 thyroid cancer deaths that the WHO attributed to it is VERY debatable and IMHO is due to an increased screening artifact.

Was Chernobyl bad? Yes, but it *should* have been much, much worse.