David Hahn

David Hahn

David Charles Hahn (October 30, 1976 – September 27, 2016), sometimes called the Radioactive Boy Scout or the Nuclear Boy Scout, was an American who in 1994, at age 17, attempted to build a homemade breeder reactor. A scout in the Boy Scouts of America, Hahn conducted his experiments in secret in a backyard shed at his mother's house in Commerce Township, Michigan. While his reactor never reached criticality, Hahn attracted the attention of local police when he was stopped on another matter and they found material in his vehicle that troubled them, and he warned that it was radioactive. His mother's property was cleaned up by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ten months later as a Superfund cleanup site. Hahn attained Eagle Scout rank shortly after his lab was dismantled.While the incident was not widely publicized initially, it became better known following a 1998 Harper's article by journalist Ken Silverstein. Hahn was also the subject of Silverstein's 2004 book, The Radioactive Boy Scout. It is likely Hahn received substantial doses of radiation. As an adult, Hahn served in the US Navy and the US Marine Corps. He was subsequently treated for mental illness, and his death at age thirty-nine was related to alcohol use.

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