[ RadSafe ] The "Double Edged Sword" - is there more to the story?

[JPreisig at aol.com]

Xrayted/Radsafe:
 
     What was the nature of the exposure  accidents????  How much estimated 
dose equivalent
delivered in how much time???
 
     Did the Labs involved settle legally with the  individuals involved??? 
 Did the exposees deliberately
bypass safety interlocks etc.???
 
     Can we have their names???  Maybe some of us  have run into them in 
real life???
 
     I know one guy from BNL who developed cancer ---  he routinely used a 
5 Curie AmBe and/or PuBe
neutron source.  They kept the source in a 55 gallon drum of  
parafin/wax/plastic or whatever.
After the guy developed cancer, the calibration area was redesigned to  
place the technicians'
office area further away from the sources.  Don't know if a legal  
settlement was involved. 
I generally used a 0.5 Curie AmBe neutron source in Calibrations.
 
    Another interesting radiation exposure incident involved  a fellow 
named Slotin, who was conducting
a criticality experiment.  At the time of exposure, Slotin was pretty  much 
right near the source.
Other fellows were at various places in the room during the exposure  
incident.  I'm told Cerenkov
(a blue flash???) was produced during the exposure.  I'm sure this  event 
is described elsewhere more
formally.  Slotin died a pretty miserable death.  Some of the  other guys 
died a while after, but this is all
long ago now.
 
    Let's be careful out there...
 
    Joe Preisig
 
 
 
 
In a message dated 12/28/2012 11:08:33 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
tdc at xrayted.com writes:

I was  just musing - enough time has passed to answer the open question 
presented  in the "Double Edged Sword".

Did the exposee get cancer decades after  the incident?

Does anyone out there KNOW?

The same question  would apply to the LBNL 1977 x-ray accident.  I guess 
I should be the  one to know the answer to that one - but he left LBNL 
shortly after the  accident and I have no idea where he went.  I would 
expect that the  research community might best know his whereabouts.  The 
latency  period has passed for this accident as  well.
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