The Goiânia Incident

This episode written for Wondery’s 2023 series “Mr. Ballen’s Medical Mysteries” follows the mysterious humanitarian health crisis that transpired in Brazil, in 1987.

SPOILER ALERT: two scavengers stole a piece of a cancer radiotherapy machine from an abandoned clinic and sold it to a nearby scrapyard. The tragedy that ensued was one of the biggest radioactive contaminations to date…surpassed only by the Chernobyl catastrophy that fell just one year prior.

The challenge of this episode was holding off on the inciting incident (the stealing of the machine piece) until the end of the story. By establishing the story a little past the beginning, listeners are presented with a mystery that Mr. Ballen takes the whole episode to flesh out. As an Agatha Christie devotee, writing this for the mystery genre made my inner child so happy. And the subversion of chronology makes for an intriguing listen!

Listen here.