Sadako was at home when the explosion occurred, about 1.6 kilometres (0.99 mi) away from ground zero. She was blown out of the window and her mother ran out to find her, suspecting she may be dead, but she found her two-year-old daughter alive. In November 1954, Sadako developed swellings on her neck and behind her ears. In January 1955, purple spots had formed on her legs. Subsequently, she was diagnosed with leukemia (her mother referred to it as "an atom bomb disease").She was hospitalized on February 21, 1955, and given, at the most, a year to live.

Several years after the atomic bomb, an increase in leukemia as observed especially among children. By the early 1950s it was clear that the leukemia was caused by radiation exposure.

On August 3, 1955, Sadako's best friend Chizuko Hamamoto came to the hospital to visit, and cut a gold piece of paper into a square to fold it into a paper crane, in reference to the ancient Japanese story that promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by the gods. A popular version of the story is that Sadako fell short of her goal of folding 1,000 cranes, having folded only 644 before her death, and that her friends completed the 1,000 and buried them all with her. This comes from the book Sadako And The Thousand Paper Cranes. An exhibit which appeared in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum stated that by the end of August 1955, Sadako had achieved her goal and continued to fold more cranes.

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| From wikipedia