Departures of note

David Charles Hahn, a Boy Scout from Michigan, built a crude neutron source in a backyard shed at his mother's house in Commerce Township, Michigan, when he was seventeen. His goal was to construct a homemade breeder reactor, but he never achieved that. Instead, he assembled a device that emitted ionizing radiation at levels likely exceeding 1,000 times normal background radiation. In August 1994, police discovered his activities during a traffic stop, and after Hahn warned them the material was radioactive, federal authorities were alerted. His mother's property was later designated a Superfund cleanup site, and the EPA dismantled the shed in June 1995, burying its contents as low-level radioactive waste in Utah.

Hahn was born on October 30, 1976, in Royal Oak, Michigan. His father, Ken Hahn, was a mechanical engineer, and his mother, Patty Hahn, suffered from alcoholism and mental illness. His parents divorced when he was nine, and his father gained custody. Hahn's stepgrandfather gave him The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments, which encouraged his early scientific pursuits. He collected radioactive materials from household items, including americium from smoke detectors, thorium from camping lantern mantles, radium from old clocks, and tritium from gunsights. He used lithium from $1,000 worth of batteries to purify thorium ash with a Bunsen burner. After the incident, he attained Eagle Scout rank.

As an adult, Hahn served in the U.S. Navy on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, achieving the rank of petty officer third class, and later enlisted in the Marine Corps, where he was honorably discharged on medical grounds. In 2007, the FBI investigated a lead about a second neutron source, but Hahn denied possessing radioactive material. That same year, he was charged with larceny for removing smoke detectors from his apartment building to obtain americium. He pleaded guilty to attempted larceny and was sentenced to 90 days in jail, with the sentence delayed while he underwent treatment in a psychiatric unit.

Hahn died on September 27, 2016, in Shelby Charter Township, Michigan, at age 39. His death was ruled an accidental result of intoxication from the combined effects of alcohol, fentanyl, and diphenhydramine. His story became widely known after journalist Ken Silverstein wrote about it in Harper's Magazine in 1998 and later expanded it into the 2004 book The Radioactive Boy Scout. The incident also inspired others, including Taylor Wilson, who at age 14 became the youngest person to produce nuclear fusion.