David Hahn

David Charles Hahn (October 30, 1976 – September 27, 2016), sometimes called the "Radioactive Boy Scout" and the "Nuclear Boy Scout" was an American nuclear radiation enthusiast who built a homemade neutron source at the age of seventeen.

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.

Hahn's goal was to build and demonstrate a homemade breeder reactor.

Hahn was born on October 30, 1976, in Royal Oak, Michigan.

His father, Ken Hahn, was a mechanical engineer.

His mother, Patty Hahn, suffered from alcoholism and was diagnosed with depression and schizophrenia and sent to a mental hospital when David Was four.

His parents divorced when he was nine, and his father gained custody.

He has a stepmother, Kathy Missig, and a step-sister Kristina after his father remarried.

David's stepgrandfather John Sims gave him The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments and encouraged his experiments in chemistry and science.

David mowed other people's lawns to help fund his experiments.

With one experiment, he created chloroform and as the book encouraged him to sniff the chemical, he did so and was passed out for more than an hour, according to his recollection.

David also loved to build fireworks and model rockets, which he altered with his own designs.

As the experiments at home were becoming a problem and increasingly dangerous, David Was encouraged by his father to join up with the Boy Scouts to provide discipline and distraction.

Hahn was fascinated by chemistry and spent years conducting amateur chemistry experiments, which sometimes caused small explosions and other mishaps.

He was inspired in part by reading The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments and tried to collect samples of every element in the periodic table, including the radioactive ones.

He later received a merit badge in Atomic Energy and became fascinated with the idea of creating a breeder reactor in his home.

Hahn diligently amassed radioactive material by collecting small amounts from household products, such as Americium from smoke detectors, thorium from camping lantern mantles, radium from clocks, and tritium from gunsights.

His "reactor" was a bored-out block of lead, and he used lithium from $1,000 worth of purchased batteries to purify the thorium ash using a Bunsen burner.

Hahn ultimately hoped to create a breeder reactor, using low-level isotopes to transform samples of thorium and uranium into fissile isotopes.

His homemade neutron source was often incorrectly referred to as a reactor, but it did emit measurable levels of radiation, likely exceeding 1,000 times normal background radiation.

Alarmed, Hahn began to dismantle his experiments, but in a chance encounter, police discovered his activities, which triggered a Federal Radiological Emergency Response Team involving the FBI and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

While he never managed to build a reactor, in August 1994, Hahn's progress attracted the attention of local police when they found material in his vehicle that troubled them during a stop for a separate matter.

When Hahn warned them that the material was radioactive, the police contacted federal authorities.

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.

On June 26, 1995, the EPA, having designated Hahn's mother's property a Superfund hazardous materials cleanup site, dismantled the shed and its contents and buried them as low-level radioactive waste in Utah.

Unbeknownst to officials, his mother, fearful that she would lose her house if the full extent of the radiation were known, had already collected the majority of the radioactive material and thrown it away in the conventional garbage.

Hahn refused medical evaluation for radiation exposure.

EPA scientists believed that Hahn's life expectancy may have been shortened due to his exposure to radioactivity, particularly since he spent long periods in the small, enclosed shed with large amounts of radioactive material and only minimal safety precautions, but he refused their recommendation that he be examined at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station.

Hahn became depressed after the scandal, a problem exacerbated by the breakup with his then-girlfriend and the suicide of his mother in early 1996.

While he did graduate from high school, he lacked any direction or plans thereafter.

His father and stepmother first encouraged him to attend Macomb Community College.

He enrolled in a metallurgy program there, but frequently skipped classes.

He was then encouraged to join the military, so he enlisted in the Navy, assigned to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65) as an undesignated seaman (pay grade E-3).

After a four-year tour, he achieved interior communications specialist with a rank of petty officer, third class (pay grade E-4).

After his time on USS Enterprise, Hahn enlisted in the Marine Corps and was stationed in North Carolina.

While the incident was not widely publicized initially, it became better known following a 1998 Harper's Magazine article by journalist Ken Silverstein.

Hahn was also the subject of Silverstein's 2004 book The Radioactive Boy Scout.

As an adult, Hahn served in the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps.

He was subsequently treated for mental illness, and his death at age 39 was related to drug and alcohol use.