[ RadSafe ] Truck Driver Charged With Lying About Radioactive Cargo

[Steven Dapra]

Aug. 30

At 09:19 AM 8/30/07 -0400, Clayton J Bradt wrote:


>The insanity is the FBI investigating a lost shipment of
>radiopharmaceuticals, and the US Attorney threatening to put someone in
>jail for ten years because of it.

         True on both counts.  Have you noticed how the FBI is busy 
sticking its nose in everywhere?  Funny though how it ignored reports from 
flight schools about suspicious people who only wanted to know how to fly 
airplanes, not how to get them off the ground and land them.  I wonder how 
that happened.


>Apparently (from communications with the Wisconsin radiation control
>program) this was a Mo/Tc-99m generator being transported from the airport
>to the hospital, so it was still within USDOT's jurisdiction at the time of
>the incident. They're the ones who sicced the FBI on this guy.  There were
>numerous DOT violations and there still are unanswered questions about what
>actually happened to the package, and they can't get a straight answer from
>the driver.  I suppose he's lucky not to have been rendered to Syria for
>questioning.

         I don't mean this against you Clayton -- I wonder if they can't 
get a straight answer, or if it is a matter of they can't get the driver to 
admit to some clever lie they have concocted.  I wonder if the eff bee eye 
video taped the interrogation, and if so, I wonder if the tapes are 
available to anyone other than the "authorities."
With respect to the DOT violations, where does the driver's employer fit 
into all of this?  Some of those violations may be the employer's fault, 
such as (only guessing now) placarding violations.  Did anyone inspect the 
truck before it departed the loading dock?  Had the driver gone through all 
the training required by DOT?  If the answer to these questions is no, why 
no inspection, and why hadn't the driver had the training?  Did he know 
what he was hauling?  Did he understand the significance of it?

Steven Dapra

>Clayton J. Bradt
>Assistant Bureau Director
>BERP
>NYS Dept. of Health