Quoting from the DCD's Acute Radiation Syndrome Fact Sheet for Physicians, dated December 20, 2002, the ARS syndrome for a dose of >50 Gy (5000 rads) is Cardiovascular (CV)/Central Nervous System (CNS), with a "prodromal stage" including extreme nervousness; confusion; severe nausea, vomiting, and watery diarrhea; loss of consciousness; burning sensations of the skin -- all occuring WITHIN MINUTES OF EXPOSURE and lasting for minutes to hours, followed by a "latent stage" in which the patient may return to partial functionality.
This may last for hours, but often is less.
The subsequent "manifest illness stage" includes return of watery diarrhea, convulsions and coma, beginning 5 to 6 hours after exposure, and finally death within 3 days of exposure.
Presumably this would all happen rather more quickly for 7,000 to 10,000 R whole body.
500,000 R to the hands ? ....forget it.
Jaro
-----Original Message-----
From: Stewart Farber [mailto:farbersa@optonline.net]
Sent: Wednesday February 26, 2003 5:19 PM
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