[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: The Goiana accident is not as Tim describes. Many were to blame.
Dear John,
Thank you very much for your topics on the Goiania Accident.
and for Tim and to all the colleagues, just to think about:
The radiological accident in Goiania ended 15 years ago, but many technical,
political, economic, social and psychological lessons still remain to be
analyzed and learned, lest any other similar accident take place. (.and many
have happened). Goiania was the worst Radiological Accident in the world,
the unique accident in the center of a important city...
Ted de Castro helps me so much making easier offering a site to present the
two ppt documents of about 5 MB on this accident, please find them at:
ftp://ehssun.lbl.gov/tdcpub/ppt/
The above is also to the second list of colleagues that ask me the files
last week.
Now a point about the John's comment:
"It is not clear that they had a physicist with them."
Yes, a a medical physicist was working in the clinic for about 5 years.
Now I would like to put 3 questions to discuss among the colleagues, if they
wish to:
1) What should be the physicist's responsibility regarding the fact that the
source was left in an inadequate place?
2) In the hypothesis that he has commented the fact to the licensee, should
he be excluded of regulatory responsibility?
3) And the court investigation?
Jose Julio Rozental
joseroze@netvision.net.il
Israel
----- Original Message -----
From: Tim <tstead@ntirs.org>
To: radsafe <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>
Sent: Saturday, April 20, 2002 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: The Goiana accident is not as Tim describes. Many were to
blame.
Thanks for the real story. I thought my memory was a
little sketchy...but then again, I heard about this
incident a year or two ago from someone that heard it
from someone...
Tim
--- John Cameron <jrcamero@facstaff.wisc.edu> wrote:
> >Tim wrote "I'm going on memory here...about the
> Gioania incident.
> >As I recall, there was a container of Cs-137 powder
> (which I believe
> >is blue) left in an abandoned warehouse. Some
> children playing
> >nearby found the container and
> >opened it (it was not an accidental "spill"). They
> thought the
> >powder looked neat and played games of "paint my
> face, I'll paint
> >yours."They got the stuff all over their hands,
> face,
> >mouth,etc...you name it. As I understood, after
> several of the
> >children who
> played with the Cs got sick, health officials
> tracked it down. I
> believe half the town was "contaminated." Some of
> the children did
> later die from the exposure."
>
> Very little of the above is correct but one or more
> children did eat
> the Cs-137 and four people died from over exposure
> to radiation. .
> Here is a bried summary of the facts.
> A radiotherapy group in Goiania had a Cs-137
> irradiator which was not
> useful for therapy. They stopped using it and left
> it an unused room
> and forgot about it. It is not clear that they had a
> physicist with
> them. They did not reply to requests from the
> Brazilian authorities
> to report on the status of the source every three
> years. The
> authorities did not investigate the situation.
> The building containing the Cs source was partially
>
> demolished so that anyone could enter it. A junk
> dealer discovered
> the Cs irradiator but it was too heavy to remove but
> it was easy to
> remove the bolts holding the source- which was still
> very heavy but
> moveable. They took it to their shop. They figured
> the lead would
> be worth something. I believe the source was sold to
> another junk
> dealer who in attempting to dismantle it ruptured
> the source. In the
> dim light of the shop, the very radioactive source
> glowed and was
> lovely to behold. People rubbed it on their skin and
> at least one
> child ate some of it.
> The family of the junk dealer began to get
> radiation
> sickness. The mother put the remainder of the source
> in a sack and
> took it to a doctor saying this stuff is killing my
> family. The
> doctor (who was a veterinarian) called the fire
> dept. to dispose of
> it. Someone connected with the episode happened to
> know a medical
> physicist visiting in Goiania, whom they contacted.
> He borrowed a
> radiation meter (probably a GM counter) and when he
> turned it on it
> appeared to be defective (jammed?). He went back to
> get a functioning
> meter and turned it on well before he approached the
> location and
> found very high readings.
> He convinced the fireman not to dump the sack in
> the river as
> they planned but to vacate people from the vicinity
> and the vicinity
> of the junk shop where it was ruptured. He must
> have been
> convincing. Within a short time the radiation
> authorities were on the
> job and the story made the world news. People from
> Goiania were
> shunned as contaminated. They couldn't get a hotel
> room in other
> cities!
> There is an IAEA report and also a book written by
> a newsman
> which is where I learned that the "doctor" was a
> veterinarian, rather
> than an MD. The IAEA report only refers to the
> person as a doctor.
> The most knowledgeable person about the Goiania
> accident is
> Jose' Rozental, (joseroze@netvision.net.il ) who is
> now retired and
> lives in Israel. He was in charge of the cleanup.
> He has much
> information including PowerPoint files with photos.
> Four people died
> from the accident. A sad but trivial accident in any
> large country. A
> drunk driver kills more nearly every day! Brazil
> spent much money on
> the clean up. The money is needed much more to
> educate Brazilians.
> In September 1996 in Costa Rica 15 cancer patients
> died from
> over doses from a Co-60 mis-calibrated source. The
> guilty person
> (i.e., the oncologist who hired an incompetent
> person to do his
> physics) left the country I believe. Accidents will
> happen.
> On the other hand about 1,000 people a day die in
> the U.S. as
> a result of smoking cigarettes and nobody much cares
> about it. Some
> would rather worry about the risks of transporting
> radioactive waste!
> Best wishes, John
>
> --
> John R. Cameron (jrcamero@facstaff.wisc.edu)
> 2678 SW 14th Dr. Gainesville, FL 32608
> (352) 371-9865 Fax (352) 371-9866
> (winters until about May 15)
>
> PO Box 405, Lone Rock,WI 53556
> (608) 583-2160; Fax (608) 583-2269
> (summers: May 2002- September 2002)
>
************************************************************************
> You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing
> list. To unsubscribe,
> send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu Put
> the text "unsubscribe
> radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail,
> with no subject line.
> You can view the Radsafe archives at
> http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/
>
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Games - play chess, backgammon, pool and more
http://games.yahoo.com/
************************************************************************
You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,
send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu Put the text "unsubscribe
radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.
You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/
************************************************************************
You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,
send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu Put the text "unsubscribe
radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.
You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/