was admitted to Pripyat Hospital but was quickly transferred to Moscow Hospital 6. By 28 April, the symptoms of radiation sickness had mostly worn away. His wife visited him in hospital and while aware he might not survive, he told her that he would give up working in the nuclear industry. During his stay, he discussed possible causes of the accident with Toptunov and Dyatlov but they were mystified. Toptunov and Akimov received a bone marrow transplant in an attempt to restore their immune systems. Akimov's condition quickly worsened. By the time accident investigator Sergei Yankovsky questioned him, Akimov could barely speak and was not able to provide much more information. Akimov eventually succumbed to acute radiation syndrome two weeks after the disaster at the age of 33. His family was informed that his death was the only reason he was not prosecuted for the accident. While the initial Soviet investigation put almost all the blame on the operators, later findings by the IAEA found that the reactor design and how the operators were informed of safety information was more significant. Nonetheless, the operators were found to have deviated from operational procedures, changing test protocols on the fly, as well as having made "ill judged" actions, making human factors a major contributing factor. Recognition In 2008, Akimov was posthumously awarded with the 3rd degree Order For Courage by Viktor Yushchenko, the then President of Ukraine. He was portrayed by actor Aleksandr Khoroshko in the 2004 Zero Hour television series, by Alex Lowe in the 2006 BBC production Surviving Disaster: Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster and by Sam Troughton in the 2019 HBO miniseries Chernobyl. See also Deaths due to the Chernobyl disaster References Рыжиков, 1994, p. 138. External links Chernobyl liquidators People from Novosibirsk 20th-century Ukrainian engineers 1953 births 1986 deaths Soviet engineers Victims of radiological poisoning Recipients of the Order For Courage, 3rd class