Litvinenko’s postmortem ‘most dangerous’

The postmortem examination of the body of Alexander Litvinenko was “one of the most dangerous postmortems ever undertaken in the western world” because of the risk of radiative contamination, the inquiry into his death has been told.
Dr Nathaniel Cary, the lead pathologist who examined Litvinenko’s body after his death from radioactive polonium-210 poisoning in November 2006, said he and other officials examining the corpse had worn not one but two protective suits, two pairs of gloves taped at the wrists and large, battery-operated plastic hoods into which filtered air was piped.
Along with a second pathologist, a police detective constable and a photographer, also wearing protective clothing, he was accompanied by an adviser from the Institute of Naval Medicine and a radiation protection officer, who monitored any specks of blood on the protective clothing, wiping them away and checking for traces of alpha radiation.
London ambulance staff observed the procedure from outside the room, said Cary, a consultant forensic pathologist, because “it would have been a disaster if anyone had fainted or had an acute medical problem” while examining the body.
In contrast to standard postmortems, where there may be an option to carry out a second examination of the body, Cary said “this was such a dangerous postmortem exam to carry out that you only really want to do it once if at all possible.”
He added: “It has been described as one of the most dangerous postmortem examinations ever undertaken in the western world, and I think that’s probably right.”
Polonium-210 emits alpha radiation, he said, which unlike gamma radiation is not highly penetrative. However, “the real danger is that it gets into your body, because [the alpha rays] go on emitting for quite a long time, which of course when it’s in your body it’s distributed around your body, and any cell next to where it’s distributed is badly affected by the continuous bombardment of alpha rays.” He was not aware, he said, of any other case of polonium poisoning in the UK.
In the presence of Marina Litvinenko, the dead man’s widow, Cary said that after the Russian died on 23 November 2006, shortly after radioactive polonium poisoning was confirmed, the intensive care unit in which he had been treated at University College hospital in central London was sealed, and the medical equipment left exactly as it had been at the moment of his death.
The Russian was initially admitted to Barnet and Chase Farm hospital in north London on 3 November, the inquiry heard, and was initially diagnosed with a gastrointestinal infection and treated with antibiotics.