[ RadSafe ] Hospital emergency response and RDD waste management
mpatterson at canberra.com
mpatterson at canberra.com
Thu Mar 3 16:40:30 CET 2005
Jose,
I have read some of your papers. I look forward to seeing your next
paper.
Your experiences and the current concerns over the use of radioactive
materials by terrorist have caused me to spend a little time thinking
about how to respond to such an event. I have thought some about the
incident or accident contamination issues for the last year or so. I
believe that public panic will be one of the biggest issues that
responders including people at hospitals will have to deal with. I also
believe, as many others do, that only a fraction of those in the incident
area will actually be contaminated. Unfortunately all those in the area
will need to be screened in order to find the contaminated individuals,
prevent the unnecessary spread of contamination and calm those that are
not contaminated.
Because of my work, I know that there are many monitoring and measurement
tools that can help. These measurement systems were developed for and are
currently in use by the nuclear industry. I work for Canberra and we
manufacture systems to quickly screen people for both external and
internal contamination. We also make handhelds, portals, and waste
systems. I hope this is not too commercial. It is not my intent to use
this site to advertise our products. I just thought that in this case
perhaps I could provide some helpful information to the group. I am
referencing our products because those are the ones that I know most
about.
Our Argos Whole Body Contamination Monitors can detect external alpha,
beta and gamma contamination in only a matter of seconds. Our FASTSCAN
and ACCUSCAN Bed systems can detect internal contamination in the lungs,
thyroid, GI Tract or Whole body in only a few minutes.
Here are my ideas for screening:
1. Screen for external contamination using a whole body contamination
monitor.
I think you'd find lots of people that are not contaminated. These people
could be treated for medical issues as needed and many could be sent home.
Note , the systems I am suggesting even tells people that they are not
contaminated.
If contamination is found, this system will provide an indication of its
location. If the contamination is only on the shoes or pants, then you
could consider taking those articles of clothing. If the shoes are made
of leather or some non-permeable material and the contamination is only on
the shoes, then you might even try a quick wipe and retest of the shoes
with a hand held contamination monitor or just put the person back on the
WBM. Then just dispose of the wipes in the contaminated trash.
If clothing is contaminated you will probably need to remove it and take
possession of it. The good news is that clothing is not heavy and
compacts. This will however mean that you need to give that person
something to wear. If they are being admitted no problem give them a
gown. If you are going to discharge them then perhaps you'd be better off
to give them scrubs or a paper jumpsuit. There are even laundry monitors
and companies that clean radioactive clothing. Once things settle down
there would be options for dealing with clothing. There are also standard
systems for counting waste materials.
If contamination is indicated in the face then nasal and mouth swabs
should be taken. If its in the hair, then you probably need to wash it,
unless injuries prevent washing. In this case you may be shaving the hair
anyway so then the hair becomes waste, possibly biological, chemical and
radiological.
If facial contamination is found and nasal or mouth swabs confirm possible
internal contamination then you need to check for internal contamination.
2. Internal Contamination Screening using a spectroscopy based whole body
counting system.
If the person is able to stand up then our FASTSCAN can be used and with a
simple 1 minute count you can detect, identify and quantify even very
small amounts of radioactive material inside the human body. If you don't
find any you can show the report to the person being monitored so they
won't be afraid of the radiation and other appropriate treatments can be
dispensed as appropriate. If you do find something, you know what it is
and how much is there. Now you can make informed decisions about
chelating treatments as appropriate. If you are concerned about people
being ambulatory then perhaps the ACCUSCAN Bed System would be more
appropriate. With this system you need a little more counting time to
achieve reasonable detection limits, the nuclear industry typically uses
something in the 5 to 8 minute range for counting times.
These are just some thoughts about how we might cope with potential mass
contamination issues. Hopefully they can help people begin to formulate
complete solutions for their needs.
Melissa Patterson
In Vivo Systems Product Manager
Canberra Industries
Jose Julio Rozental <joseroze at netvision.net.il>
Sent by: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl
03/03/2005 12:22 AM
To: radsafe at radlab.nl
cc:
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Hospital emergency response and RDD waste management
About Response to emergency today there are two possibilities
a) Non Malevolent intent, as error, mishap, fire, damage, etc - You can
project and planning the response, you know about sources, scenarios,
sources activities, every detail that responders must put into action.
b) Malevolent intent, as RDD - In this case it is very complex to prepare
the scenario.
We, in Goiania, have to be face with many situations that we never found
before in any literature about Emergency Planning and Preparedness, and
you
have to deal with.
For this reason the last US Secretary of Energy S. Abraham, (bellow
reference), said:
"We know from experience with accidental releases of radiological sources
that they can cause widespread panic, economic hardship and significant
health concerns. Remember Brazil, in 1987. Urban scavengers found a
medical
teletherapy machine left in an abandoned building. They removed the
radioactive source from its shielding, ruptured it and distributed the
beautiful blue, glowing powder they found inside to their friends,
neighbors
and relatives. The powder was 137Cs. Four people died. More than 110 000
people were monitored for radiation exposure at the city's sports stadium.
Scores of buildings were evacuated and some were even demolished. Cleanup
costs were enormous. The incident generated about 3500 cubic meters of
radioactive waste. Actual fatalities were relatively light in the Brazil
incident, but panic was widespread. I can only imagine how much worse the
situation would have been had terrorists dispersed the toxic material
rather
than innocent, uninformed people."
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1165_web.pdf
"International Conference on Promoting the Security of Radiological
Materials" To Expand World Framework For Tackling the Problems Posed by
"Dirty Bombs 2003, VIENNA,10-13 MARCH 2003
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE CONFERENCE, page 9
THE UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF ENERGY S. Abraham
At the moment I am writing a paper "Radiological Accident in Goiania x
RDD,
similarities and differences" to be presented in any future conference on
Security and one of the topic refers to waste that we have to manage,
including in the middle of the street, one case in Goiania, about 50m.
from
a Super Market. Can one imagines this situation? -- To those that want to
look this picture send me an e-mail. Let's try to understand better taking
a
look in the Radiological Accident in Goiania, IAEA publication, 1988 or in
HP Special Issue, Volume 60, Number 1, January 1991 - Look my paper "The
Radiological Accident in Goiania: The initial remedial actions"
Jose Julio Rozental
joseroze at netvision.net.il
Israel
_______________________________________________
You are currently subscribed to the radsafe mailing list
radsafe at radlab.nl
For information on how to subscribe/unsubscribe and other settings visit:
http://radlab.nl/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/radsafe
More information about the radsafe
mailing list