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RE: Nova - Dirty Bombs - Terrorist incapacitation
Almost forty years ago there was a severe radiation accident in Rhode
Island, not unlike the one that occurred in 1999 in Japan. The victim, a
Robert Peabody, received something on the order of 8800 rads of mixed
neutron-gamma dose, most intense over the head and upper trunk. He
experienced severe abdominal pains, headache, nausea, vomiting, and bloody
diarrhea within five to ten minutes after the accident. Sounds to me like he
was pretty incapacitated at that point. He died of circulatory collapse 49
hours later in this hospital.
David L. North, Sc.M. DABR
Associate Physicist
Department of Medical Physics
Main Bldg Rm 317
Rhode Island Hospital
593 Eddy St.
Providence, RI 02903
ph: (401)444-5961
fax: (401)444-4446
dnorth@lifespan.org
> ----------
> From: Stewart Farber
> Reply To: Stewart Farber
> Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 17:19
> To: High Plains Drifter; Radsafe
> Subject: Re: Nova - Dirty Bombs - London Scenario question
>
> Hi all:
>
> I listened to the NOVA "special" last night and found it remarkable how
> sensationalistic it was. It seemed their intent was to maximize public
> panic if
> and when anyone sets off a bomb involving any amount of radioactivity, no
> matter
> how trivial. For example, a stick of dynamite in a bucket of woodash
> obtained
> from Northern Florida would disperse 300,000 picoCuries of Cs-137 [10 kg
> of ash
> at 30,000 pCi/kg] or a total of about 11,000 Bq of Cs-137. If this were
> done,
> would the authorities want to tear down London or New York because some of
> it is
> contaminated to "above background" levels? I'm not being facetious.
> Thousands of
> tons of radioactive woodash [with greatly elevated Cs-137 levels of on the
> order
> of 20,000 pCi/kg ash] from wood burning power plants in New England are
> being
> mixed with manure today and spread on organic farming coop fields with no
> concern. Laughable actually as to the disconnect between organic gardening
> use of
> Cs-137 laden woodash and the hysteria about a dirty bomb's impact on a
> wide area.
>
> The scenario NOVA dramatized last night involved a whole lot more Cs-137,
> or a
> source with 74,000 GBq of Cs-137 [2000 Ci] as I recall them mentioning.
> For a
> point source of Cs-137 this equates to about 6.6E6 R/hr at 1 cm. If the
> terrorists spent 1 hour at say 2 feet from this unshielded source [??? a
> wag
> assumption] in fabricating the bomb and transporting it they would receive
> about
> 7,000 R whole body.
>
> Does anyone on the list have any feel for how quickly a person would be
> incapacitated by receiving 7,000 to 10,000 R whole body?
>
> The exposure to the hands and fingers of these terrorists fabricating such
> a bomb
> would have been much higher --perhaps 500,000 R for 10 minutes of handling
> in
> fabrication. Would these terrorists even have been able to drive a few
> hours
> after handling a 2,000 Ci Cs-137 source for the time it would take to
> fabricate a
> bomb and transport it to the point of use??
>
> Stewart Farber, MSPH
>
>
> =======================
> 2/26/03 8:08:14 AM, High Plains Drifter <magna1@jps.net> wrote:
> >
> > I watched the NOVA "Dirty Bomb" program Tuesday night and came away
> with the
> > following thoughts:
> >
> >
> > *Technical details about post bomb explosion risks were fragmented and
> > interspersed with statistical mumbo jumbo that left one with the
> feeling
> > that any amount of radiation is hazardous.
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>
>
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