Japanese man survives two atomic bombings.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi was present in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the exact moment the US dropped the atomic bombs, yet he miraculously survived.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi in his old age. Photo: NPR.

Atomic bombs were only used twice in history: the first on August 6, 1945, in Hiroshima, and the second two days later in Nagasaki, Japan, killing hundreds of thousands of people. One Japanese man was in both cities on the day the bombs exploded, yet survived both, earning him the nickname "Lucky Yamaguchi," according to War History.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi should not have been in Hiroshima when the U.S. dropped the Little Boy nuclear bomb on the city. In fact, he was on his way out of Hiroshima. Three months earlier, Mitsubishi Corporation had sent Yamaguchi on a business trip to the city. After completing his work, he was scheduled to return to Nagasaki on August 6th.

On that fateful day, Yamaguchi made his last appearance at the Hiroshima branch of Mitsubishi Corporation. Before arriving, he heard the sound of an airplane overhead and recognized it as an American B-29 bomber. The plane dropped a small object and flew away at 8:15 a.m.

Immediately afterward, a massive explosion occurred. Yamaguchi instinctively jumped into a nearby stream, but the shockwave flung him out of his hiding place. He was thrown into a potato field and knocked unconscious, while the aftershocks of the bomb continued to affect him. The mushroom cloud of Little Boy grew larger in the sky over Hiroshima. Yamaguchi was less than 3 kilometers from the explosion site. He suffered burns to his face and forearms, lost his right ear, and had both eardrums ruptured, but he survived.

Having survived the devastating explosion, Yamaguchi travels to the destroyed office building, attempting to piece together what happened. He finds two colleagues who also survived the blast. Upon discovering that trains were still running out of the city, they cross the ruins of Hiroshima to the train station to return to Nagasaki.

After returning home, despite being burned, bandaged, and hearing loss, Yamaguchi still went to the Mitsubishi plant in Nagasaki on August 9th. When he recounted the events of Hiroshima, the supervisor thought Yamaguchi was insane; his story was too unbelievable for those who had never witnessed a nuclear weapon explode.

Hiroshima after the bombing. Photo: War in Context.

While they were talking, the U.S. dropped the second nuclear bomb, codenamed Fat Man, on Nagasaki. Just like what Yamaguchi had witnessed in Hiroshima, what appeared to be a tiny dot in the sky suddenly exploded into a brilliant white light. Yamaguchi fell to the floor as the bomb shattered all the windows of the building.

He believed that the aftershocks of the Hiroshima explosion reached Nagasaki. In reality, Nagasaki was attacked by a new bomb, even more powerful than Little Boy. Once again, this lucky man escaped death.

Yamaguchi immediately sought shelter. His family was in danger; he found them hiding in the rubble of their home. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured. All three went to the bomb shelter, where they were directly exposed to the radiation from Fat Man. Yamaguchi lost his hair, his wounds from Hiroshima became constantly infected and necrotic, and he vomited, but he survived.

Yamaguchi's life gradually returned to normal. He lived in seclusion, working with the American military during their time stationed in Japan. Yamaguchi was part of the "hibakusha," a group of survivors of the atomic bombings, receiving financial and medical support for his condition. However, Yamaguchi only registered as a hibakusha for the first explosion in Hiroshima.

As Yamaguchi aged, he began to suffer health problems caused by radiation, and felt the government should know about his unique story. In January 2009, Yamaguchi applied for recognition as a dual hibakusha. He was granted recognition two months later, becoming the only person in history to have survived both nuclear attacks.

A year after being recognized as a double survivor, on January 4, 2010, Yamaguchi died of stomach cancer at the age of 93.

According to VNE