RES: Dirty Bombs and Goiania

["John Hunt" <john@ird.gov.br>]

Dear Mike,



The patients (many children, adolecents and adults), for the correct

numbers, see the Health Physics and IAEA papers) were first screened at the

Goiania city football/olympic stadium and there received immediate medical

treatment and simple external decontamination measures. The patients were

then transferred to two hospitals: Marcelio Dias Hospital in Rio de Janeiro

which was prepared to receive contaminated patients, and the General

Hospital in Goiania city, which was not.



The patients were accompanied to the two hospitals by specialised medical

and radiation protection staff, and at no time was their medical or

decontamination treatment interrupted. Skin decontamination at "hot spots",

general decontamination by showering started immediately, and, a day or two

later, internal decontamination with Prussian Blue (see the Health Physics

papers).



I can see the similarity of the Goiania accident to the question of "dirty

bombs". I remember at the time hoping never to have to go through something

like that again. For the final numbers...100,000 people screened, area

decontamination, health effects, please see the following papers:



Oliveira A., Hunt J., Brandao C.E., Valverde, General Medical and Related

Aspects of the Goiania Accident , Health Physics, 1991.



also:



The January 1991 issue of Health Physics was a special issue on "The Goiania

Radiation Accident." Radiation Protection Dosimetry, 1988, 25(3):217 and the

IAEA Publication, STI/Pub/815, ISBN 92-0-129088-8, 1988.



and also:



"Dosimetric and medical aspects of the radiological accident in Goiania in

1987", IAEA - TECDOC 1009 for information as to the very first measures

taken. I was not present during the very first actions taken.



John Hunt.







-----Mensagem original-----

De: owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

[mailto:owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu]Em nome de Michael McNaughton

Enviada em: terca-feira, 11 de junho de 2002 18:24

Para: AndrewsJP@AOL.COM

Cc: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

Assunto: Re: Dirty Bomb - CNN Accuracy?





At 04:49 PM 06/11/2002 -0400, AndrewsJP@aol.com wrote:

>My guess is that the hospital identified the child as contaminated, then

>washed her, then evaluated the contamination remaining and decided to

>isolate her.



Please correct me if you know more, but according to reports I have read:

the hospital personnel did not know how to evaluate the contamination, they

did not know what to do, and they were afraid, so the child was not washed

until the health-physics team arrived.



mike

Mike McNaughton

Los Alamos National Lab.

email: mcnaught@LANL.gov or mcnaughton@LANL.gov

phone: 505-667-6130



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