In a word, what had happened seemed like nothing more than a series of serious oversights in the investigation. That's why he made sure he had written statements from Prakhov, the technician, and academician Azarov before he left the institute grounds.

The electrical technician Georgii Danilovich Prakhov, twenty years old, Russian, unmarried, draftable, and not a Party member, wrote:

“When I entered the laboratory, the overhead light was on; only the power network was disrupted. The stench in the room was so bad that I almost threw up — it was like a hospital. The first thing that I noticed was a naked man lying in an overturned tank, his head and arms dangling, with a metallic contraption on his head. Something was leaking out of the tub; it looked like a thick ichor. The other one, a new student (I've seen him around), was lying nearby, face up, his arms outspread. I rushed over to the one in the tub and pulled him out. He was still warm and very slippery, so that I couldn't get a good grip on him. I tried to awaken him, but he seemed dead. I recognized him. It was Valentin Vasilyevich Krivoshein. I had run into him often at the institute. We always said hello. The student was breathing, but remained unconscious. Since there is no one at the institute except for the outside guards, I called an ambulance and the police on the laboratory phone.

“The temporary short circuit had occurred in the power cable that goes to the laboratory electroshield along the wall in an aluminum pipe. The tub broke a bottle that apparently contained acid which ate through in that spot and the cable shorted out like a second — class conductor.”