Vertus Hardiman, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetVertus Hardiman
american victim of radiation experiments
Date of Birth: 
About Vertus Hardiman
- Vertus Wellborn Hardiman (March 9, 1922 – June 1, 2007) was a victim of a US government human radiation experiment at the age of five that left him with a painful skull deformity that forced him to cover his head for 80 years.Hardiman was born in Lyles Station, Indiana.
- In 1928, Vertus attended Lyles Consolidated School where he and nine other children were severely irradiated during a medical experiment conducted at the local county hospital.
- To get parental consent the experiment was misrepresented as a new therapy for the scalp fungus known as ringworm.
- The radiation of the skull led to immediate symptoms but also to a severe progressive necrosis of the bone all through his life. The school children from Lyles Station School were delivered by their schoolbus, including Vertus who was only five years-old at the time and not technically enrolled in school.
- His mother sent him with his older brother to receive what they had been told was treatment for ringworm.
- All of the children treated with the radiation complained of the same symptoms: they all experienced headaches, suffered from dizziness, and felt extreme burning of the scalp.
- Eventually all the children lost their hair permanently.
- Jerrod Elliott was raised by a mother who sympathized with African Americans and took on a legal case to help the Hardimans.The parents of the children did meet with a local lawyer and filed a lawsuit against the hospital, focusing on how the parents had been misled and tricked, but the verdict found the hospital not liable.
- Many suffered long-term effects, but with Vertus Hardiman, the effects were the most pronounced.Grossly disfigured, Hardimann bore this injustice with remarkable dignity.
- In 1945 Vertus traveled to California in search of broader opportunity.
- In 1946 he worked for the County of Los Angeles General Hospital, where he served with distinction.
- Vertus lived his last years in Altadena, California.
- Hardiman died at age 85. The life of Vertus Hardiman is the subject of a documentary released in 2011 that was written and produced by Wilbert Smith and directed by Brett Leonard.
Read more at Wikipedia