True story about the tragic nuclear power plant accident in Chernobyl and how one American specialist, Dr. Robert Gale, helped the soviet doctors treat the survivors.

On the night of April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl disaster leads to the horrific death of a number of people and rocks the lives of everyone living near the ill-fated soviet nuclear plant. However, the secretive communist USSR government refuses to let anyone know how serious the catastrophe is, and orders an immediate evacuation of everyone living in the vicinity of the plant including the local farmers, some of whom refuse to leave, and the town of Pripyat, where the people who work in the plant live with their families. Yelena Mashenko, the wife of one of the firemen dangerously irradiated at the plant while attempting to put out the fire that broke out after the explosion tries to find her hospitalized husband in the chaos. Meanwhile, in California, a rich but dedicated real life American physician, Dr. Robert Gale, learns about the Chernobyl disaster, and travels to Moscow to offer his help, being an expert on the latest groundbreaking methods for treating bone marrow-related illnesses through bone marrow transplant, even those caused by radiation. The communist USSR government does not trust him at first, but eventually allows him to gather a team of international doctors he needs and help his soviet colleagues treat the dying firemen, including Yelena's husband. The film is based on Gale's book.