The International Atomic Energey Committee who is tasked with investigating
this kind of accident has many reports on accidents including irradiators. It
seems that these are not uncommon (as radiation accidents go), probably
because the radioactive sources in irradiators are made to be moved about and
occasionally transported, much more so than, e.g. the radioactive fuel in
reactors, or even weapons.<p>Lax standards or just changing circumstances such as an owner moving or going
out of business (or collapsing entirely, like in the case of the USSR) has
caused accidents, in the past.<p>A famous example is the accident in Goiânia, in Brazil, in 1985. In short, a
private radiotherapy institute moved house leaving behind a working caesium
137 teletherapy unit with the source still in it. Two people took parts of the
unit, broke them apart and sold them to a scrap yard. The owner noticed the
blue glow of the strange salt-like substance in the unit and took it home and
showed it to his friends and family. People became fascinated with the sight
and took fragments of it to their homes where their kids and family played
with it. Eventually, someone connected the fact that people were getting sick
with the strange glowing stuff and took a sample to the public health
department. This led to the accident being discovered.<p>Some 250 people were contaminated and four died while others suffered
radiation sickness, but fortunately recovered. Lest this be taken as evidence
of the low risk from such accidents let it just be said: you don't want your
kids playing with sparkly blue radioactive stardust.<p>IAEA accident report here:<p><a href="https://www.iaea.org/publications/3684/the-radiological-accident-in-goiania" rel="nofollow">https://www.iaea.org/publications/3684/the-radiological-acci...</a>
I'm a radiology resident at UW and we haven't really heard much about this event. Harborview is a phenomenal hospital, and (in my opinion) the best one in the UW system. The University has a pretty good track record of admitting fault, even when it costs the system millions. See: <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/uw-medicine-mistakenly-exposed-information-on-nearly-1-million-patients/" rel="nofollow">https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/uw-medicine...</a><p>UW Medicine itself is not doing well financially (they lost $75 million last year): <a href="https://www.washington.edu/regents/files/2018/01/2018-02-B-2.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.washington.edu/regents/files/2018/01/2018-02-B-2...</a><p>Harborview was the only profitable hospital in the system. Seattle is the second-largest tech city in the nation and housing prices have grown astronomically, just like in SF. The difference between UW and, say, Stanford or UCSF, is that UW's patient population comes from the WWAMI states. They don't typically treat the young tech works, although I have had a couple older Boeing/Microsoft patients. UW/Harborview patients continue to be mostly low-income Seattlites and tertiary care/trauma patients from the WWAMI states. The UW takes care of poor/rural patients while existing in a wealthy city. It's a unique place to work.<p>EDIT: I asked my fellow radiology residents about this event<p>"We had a nuc med lecture on the event! It's super interesting how they managed it."<p>"We had a separate nuclear medicine lecture on a Tuesday by the woman who helped managed the incident and is responsible for nuclear accidents."<p>"Was on HMC call that night. Physics lecture on that was useful. Radiation --> reflex call radiologist is a real thing."<p>"Cool. Honestly they should just reflex call them. I just paged them anyway."<p>“3.6 roentgens per hour. Not great, not terrible.”
Thank you, Capitol Hill Seattle (and Margo Vansynghel in particular!), for real investigative journalism that the major Seattle papers and news outlets haven't done on this story.<p>I have minor quibbles on the facts, and with some of the tone of the story, but I'm glad to see that a journalist was able to put in the time to research and write a long-form story about which the Seattle community will care.<p>For the commenters lining up to throw stones -- we all find in time that our own homes are made, at least in part, of glass. It is intrinsic to any accident that at least one mistake was made, but discerning how and why the mistake came to pass almost always takes longer than anyone would like. Throwing stones too early often means that they will miss their mark, becoming mistakes of their own.<p><i>Edit: crediting Margo Vansynghel, the article's author</i>
For context: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident</a><p>> The Goiânia accident [ɡojˈjɐniɐ] was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, in Goiânia, in the Brazilian state of Goiás, after a forgotten radiotherapy source was taken from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 were found to have significant levels of radioactive material in or on their bodies.<p>> In the cleanup operation, topsoil had to be removed from several sites, and several hundred houses were demolished. All the objects from within those houses, including personal possessions, were seized and incinerated. Time magazine has identified the accident as one of the world's "worst nuclear disasters" and the International Atomic Energy Agency called it "one of the world's worst radiological incidents".
It sounds like the removal of the vial was done on-site for somewhat reasonable reasons, but in the future they ought to have a temporary structure erected during removal so that if something happens, the dust doesn't get blown and tracked everywhere. Doing this in a shipping container would have avoided all of these problems and most of the exposure to people as well.
>This could destroy the careers of people who have been working their entire lives on research meant to save lives and improve public health and hospital outcomes<p>That is devastating for the researchers.
In looking for the construction of the capsule I found this article about a similar contamination issue with Cesium. Reading through the Events section that discovers theft and attempts at recovering the Cesium because of its blue glow are mind blowing.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident#Events" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident#Events</a>
Why is the cleanup crew not wearing safety gear? Given how easily the cesium powder disperses in the air, at the very least, I would want a mask to prevent the cesium from entering my lungs.
I wonder why they named the picture 'Tsjernobyl-1.jpg'.<p><a href="https://i2.wp.com/www.capitolhillseattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Tsjernobyl-1.jpg?fit=1700%2C832" rel="nofollow">https://i2.wp.com/www.capitolhillseattle.com/wp-content/uplo...</a>
According to the NRC notice, it's a JL Shepard Mark 168A<p><a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2019/20190510en.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/...</a><p>There's some pictures of a similar device here:<p><a href="https://www.bnl.gov/nsrl/grsf/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bnl.gov/nsrl/grsf/</a><p>It doesn't show why you'd need a grinder to take it apart, though.
About half of this machine's radioactive material leaked into the immediate vicinity after the radioactive source was removed from a larger machine as part of routine decommissioning.
Reading this I realise that the idea of "Health and Safety" is a good one. Make a plan for the bad things that could happen and you just follow the plan - "Action On" it is called in the mklitary I believe<p>The bit where someone asks "did you turn off the HVAC in the building once the radioactive particles went airborne?" is a classic example.
This is a well researched article. Although mistakes can be made it's a bit puzzling that there was so much miscommunication. Maybe too many orgs involved. That Seattle fire department wasn't even informed beforehand seems clumsy.
> Things were far from being back to normal, however. That the HVAC system was shut off to prohibit the cesium from spreading through the building was a good thing. But as it stayed off, in the days after the leak, the building started to heat up. Which meant the freezers in the building, which keep research specimen at -80°C, had to work harder to stay cool. Some were failing. Important research samples were in danger.<p>> “Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, labor, and samples are being lost on a daily basis. This could destroy the careers of people who have been working their entire lives on research meant to save lives and improve public health and hospital outcomes,” an anonymous source told KIRO.<p>> UW/Harborview personnel moved the contents of some units to other freezers nearby about a week after the spill, said Susan Gregg of the UW Medicine.<p>> “If they were showing signs of failure, the materials were moved to other freezers,” Gregg said. “We were very diligent that none of those research specimens were damaged.” No specimens were found to have any contamination, she added. The animals, mostly rodents, held in the building’s vivarium, have all been moved to another location as well. It took about two weeks for the HVAC system to be turned back on.<p>I love how they use a FUD quote from an "anonymous" source while following it up with an actual source which claims the complete opposite...<p>People love to be dramatic.<p>Also an interesting fact from Wikipedia:<p>>> Accidental ingestion of caesium-137 can be treated with Prussian blue, which binds to it chemically and reduces the biological half-life to 30 days.<p><a href="https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Caesium-137#/Health_risk_of_radioactive_caesium" rel="nofollow">https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Caesium-137#/Health_risk_of_radi...</a>
If this is how involved <i>removing</i> the thing is, how exactly was it built? And if you can't transport it inside the irradiator, how did the irradiator get there?
What surprises me the most is that they did the cutting in an open room (door open) without taping over the HVAC vents. They literally could have made a makeshift tent out of plastic tarps to do the cutting inside. Such bad safety precautions...
Jesus that read like a big ol fuck up. The lack of preparation for a spill, despite having all these people on site, is the most glaring issue. SFD didn’t even get a heads up.