Fun_People Archive
27 Nov
Give 'Em The Atomic Chair!

Date: Sat, 27 Nov 93 17:07:34 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: Give 'Em The Atomic Chair!

 From: lou@netcom.com (Lou Katz)

	MOSCOW (UPI) -- A Russian businessman who died recently of mysterious
causes was apparently killed by his chair, which was found after his
death to be highly radioactive, Russian newspapers reported Friday.
	Investigators discovered that the deadly office chair was the source
of 1.5 million times more radioactivity than normal background levels,
causing fatal radiation poisoning in the man, the daily Moscovsky
Komsomolets said.
	The man, indentified only as V. Kaplun, was general manager of a
Moscow-based private firm and had been hospitalized for over a month
before his death last week. Doctors had been unable to diagnose his
ailment, though one physician said the symtoms resembled those of
radiation poisoning.
	The dead man's colleages at the firm discovered the chair's potency
after they decided to inspect the office with a Geiger counter and found
levels off the scale.
	Civil defense inspectors found radiation levels on two floors of the
building of 120 to 200 roentgen per hour, the trade union daily Trud
reported. 
	Inside the man's office, the paper said, ``radiation levels were
enormous, comparable to only Chernobyl.'' The building was immediately
cordoned off.
	Other employees of the firm will be examined for signs of radiation
poisoning. It was not known how the chair became radioactive, though
there have been other incidents in Moscow where ordinary household items
and even foods have been found to be radioactive.

© 1993 Peter Langston