Radiation Accidents

[Michael Gazda <gazda@worldnet.att.net>]

Hopefully I can get some help from my fellow MedPhysicists.  I am
planning on giving an informal 1 hour talk to our staff (clinical and
clerical) on radiation accidents.  What I want to discuss is (1) those
incidents where a machine or staff problem caused patient injury in a
rad therapy dept and (2) those concerning injuries caused by public
exposure to radioactive materials in general.  

I do have info on the Therac-25 problem, the Brazilian family with the
Cesium source and the cobalt decay problem that overdosed patients, but
that's it. I would think that there must be a compilation of these
accidents out there somewhere, but I can't locate it.  I've searched the
net, nrc.gov and amazon.com (book titles), but to no avail.

I don't plan on making this a morbid presentation, just one that
demonstrates the potential dangers involved when working in our field. 
Any help on where I can get this info would be greatly appreciated.  

The areas I plan on discussing are:

        HDR
        LDR
        Linac accidents
        Cobalt accidents
        Injuries caused by lost (and eventually found by the unfortunate
individual) sources

This might be of some interest to the subscribers of this listserver, so
any replies can certainly be posted here.  If you want to email me, my
address is...

gazda@worldnet.att.net

Thanks.

Michael Gazda
Medical Physicist
Temple University Cancer Center
Philadelphia (Flyers!!), PA