Imagine being burned by invisible fire. Your skin broiling under the searing heat, your hair falling out as the flames lick at your scalp, and the blood in your veins boiling.
Worst of all, you’re not alone as your body melts from the inside out. You’re in a hospital, surrounded by doctors, none of whom can do a thing to stop the burning.
It’s a fate worse than death, but that’s how Vasily Ignatenko (Adam Nagaitis) dies in the HBO miniseries Chernobyl, and it might just be the most chilling moment in TV history, 40 years on from the horrific real-life disaster that inspired the drama.
Because Vasily isn’t killed in a nuclear explosion, he doesn’t get a heroic death preventing meltdown; hell, he doesn’t even get a proper burial.
But how did Vasily get in this situation? Well, in the first episode, he’s one of the firefighters sent to put out a fire on the roof of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat.
As Vasily and his team battle through the ash and smoke, they’re completely unaware of the invisible danger all around them.
Vasily and his men are standing in the wreckage of a nuclear reactor, exposing themselves to lethal amounts of radiation.
Three things make Vasily’s death shocking, the first of which is the horror of seeing what the radiation does to his body over the course of three episodes.
This radiation will ruin his body, causing burns, organ failure, and rapid decomposition so severe that doctors can’t even give him pain medication.
As agonising as the physical pain is, it’s made worse by the fact that he cannot be near his pregnant wife, Lyudmilla Ignatenko (Jessie Buckley), who has to sit and watch her husband melt.
And in a moment of empathy for the man she loves, Lyudmilla will ultimately disobey the doctors and visit her husband – unintentionally exposing her baby to the radiation that killed her husband, causing her to lose her child.
The radiation destroyed not just Vasily’s body but also ruined his widow’s life and denied him any sort of legacy.
The second thing that makes this so chilling, though, isn’t just the horror of an ignominious death or losing a child.
No, it’s terrifying because it runs counter to the classic narrative we want to be told. Vasily is one of the first characters we see, who fearlessly runs towards a fire at Chernobyl.
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In a word, he’s a hero.
But he doesn’t die a hero’s death. It’s slow, cruel, and painful. There’s no just reward for his bravery.
He dies alone and is buried in a zinc coffin under concrete, in a mass grave. His body is still giving off so much radiation that it’s a danger to everyone.
It’s not what we expect from TV shows, but that’s the point in a way, which brings me on to the third and final reason Vasily’s death still sends shivers down my spine.
This didn’t need to happen.
Vasily might have died from radiation poisoning, but that’s not what killed him. No, we learn after his death that what killed Vasily Ignatenko was incompetence and secrets.
You see, the Soviet Union knew about the design flaws in Chernobyl’s reactor. They knew that the emergency shutdown button could cause a disaster. They knew it all, and they lied.
They lied to protect themselves.
The true story of Vasily Ignatenko (13 March 1961 – 13 May 1986)
As sensationalised as Vasily’s death in the show is, it’s important to remember that he was a real man who died a very real death.
Vasily Ignatenko was one of the first responders to the Chornobyl (Chornobyl with an ‘o’ is the correct transliteration from the Ukrainian language) disaster on 26 April 1986.
Vasily and his fellow firefighters fought fires on the roof of the ventilation building caused by super-heated debris torn from the inside of Chornobyl’s reactor during the explosion.
After just an hour on the roof, Vasily’s unit started experiencing the first signs of radiation poisoning. Unable to stand, they were evacuated and sent to Pripyat Hospital, but it soon became clear they needed more specialised treatment.
He was transported to Hospital No. 6, a hospital where he was diagnosed with Acute Radiation Syndrome. In the hopes of helping him recover, doctors administered a bone marrow transplant using his older sister as the donor.
Sadly, the transplant was not a success, and his condition deteriorated. As his immune system struggled to cope, he began to experience skin necrosis and organ failure.
He died on May 13, 17 days after the disaster. He was buried with full military honours alongside other Chornobyl victims in Mitinskoe Cemetery, Moscow.
And that insistence on keeping secrets is what led to the Soviet Union installing flawed reactors.
It led to bureaucrats worrying more about covering their mistakes than about safety.
It led to technicians at the power plant conducting a dangerous experiment.
It led to the explosion.
It led to the fire.
It led to Vasily’s death.
That’s the cost of lies.
Chernobyl is available to watch now on HBO Max and Now.
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