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The unenviable task of what serious professionals straightfacedly refer to as "the most dangerous autopsy in history" fell on consultant forensic pathologist Dr. Nathaniel Cary. Wisely, he approached the task in the time-tested "wear a second condom, just in case" fashion. Wearing not one but two protective suits, two pairs of gloves, and a shitload of tape to secure the wrists, he ventured into Litvinenko's hospital room and carefully disconnected the body from the machinery, put it in two body bags (notice the theme?), and took it to wait for autopsy in a recovery operation he doesn't elaborate on but adamantly calls "very hazardous." This leads me to believe that the situation played out like that old Laurel and Hardy sketch wherein they try to move a piano up a giant flight of stairs. Just a couple of increasingly panicked doctors in hazmat suits running after the body bag as it tumbles around in increasingly slapstick fashion.

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The actual autopsy took place on December 1 at London's Royal Hospital. This time, the crew included Dr. Cary, another pathologist, a cop, a photographer, and a dude whose sole function was to wipe all errant blood drops from people's clothes, lest they become polonized. Nearby, an ambulance staff was watching over them in case someone fainted or collapsed. Everyone was wearing the same two-suit getup as Cary, complete with custom battery-powered, air-circulating hoods. If Litvinenko had against all odds opened his eyes, he'd have thought he'd been abducted by a bunch of extremely nervous aliens.

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Oh, and ultimately, the terror autopsy didn't even play that huge a part in determining Litvinenko's cause of death. They uncovered a whole bunch of interesting information about radiation poisoning, but they might have missed the cause of death entirely if someone hadn't ordered a test for polonium's signature alpha radiation on a hunch before Litvinenko had even died. That's right: After preparing for a radioactive threat to the point of almost hiring Godzilla as a bodyguard, the whole thing was solved by fucking accident.