A garage sale bargain: A leaking 2.2 GBq {sup 226}Ra source, Phase 1 - the incident
- Tennessee Dept. of Environment and Conservation, Knoxville, TN (United States)
In March 1995, a private citizen living in Bristol, Tennessee, went to a local garage sale and purchased a box containing old medical equipment and paraphernalia for $10.00. The man put the box in the trunk of his car where it remained for several weeks. He then took the box into his home where he examined all of the items, including a small wooden box with a metal sleeve. After significant effort, he managed to remove the inner box which bore the word {open_quotes}radium.{close_quotes} Unsure of what this meant, he called his son-in-law who understood that radium was a radioactive material and called the Tennessee Division of Radiological Health (TDRH). The TDRH investigation quickly located and isolated the source and determined that the contamination was spread throughout the man`s home and yard. Exposure rate readings as high as 160 mR h{sup -1} were found along with removable contamination as high as 3,000,000 dpm/100 cm{sup 2}. Over the next several days, the TDRH organized a voluntary effort for the medical evaluation of the man and his wife, the removal of the source, and the decontamination of the home, yard, car, etc. The two following papers will describe these aspects of this incident. On 26 May 1995, the remediation was completed, ending this unusual, but not unique, radiation incident.
- OSTI ID:
- 394051
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9607135-; ISSN 0017-9078; TRN: 96:028729
- Journal Information:
- Health Physics, Vol. 70, Issue Suppl.6; Conference: 41. Annual Meeting of the Health Physics Society, Seattle, WA (United States), 21-25 Jul 1996; Other Information: PBD: Jun 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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