Fuck ! Radiation exposure.

The BBQ Pit
1

My husband is a trash truck driver. This morning he went to one job to pick up a container when he took it to the dump, alarms started going off indicating the the load had a lot of radiation (I don’t even know if this is the right word but for now this is all I’ve been told).

They have taken his driver’s licence away and will not return it until the DOT arrives. No one has told him when that will happen, he’s been sitting there for about three hours now.

He doesn’t know if he’s been contamintated or what they will have to do if he is. No one is doing anything or telling him anything. If he asks them a question they just laugh at him.

I’m worried.

2

Sorry to hear your husband was exposed to something. It might not be any huge amount of radiation. I would suspect that the Homeland Security people have their radiation monitors cranked to the stops right now and would detect even small amounts of radiation. I’m very curious as to what this may have been.

Regards

Testy

3

Don’t get that worried, yet. In general, “radiation” is a bit of a bogey man–it’s not nearly as bad as the glowing-green waste and 3-eyed fish on the Simpsons would have you believe. Unless it was something, really, really, really nasty (which isn’t very likely at all), he was probably well-shielded from it by his truck cab. The most likely outcome is that it will turn out to be something relatively innocuous (improperly disposed medical equipment, for example), and it’ll all blow over. The probability of him contracting leukemia, getting shipped to Gitmo and making World News Tonight is rather small. :wink:

4

We’d need to wait to hear from someone who knows, but I just thought I’d point out that exposure tends to be cumulative: something that would be dangerous regularly can be perfectly safe once, sort of thing. So fingers crossed, but if I was a betting man I’d be betting on it all being ok, radiation-poisoning-wise.

Taking away his driving licence? That just to stop him skedaddling, right, he’s not in any trouble?

5

Sending warm thoughts your way!

6

I would take the fact that they are laughing at his questions as a good sign. It’s tough to laugh at a guy if you think he was really hurt.

7

He’s OK.

It was a lot of fucking bullshit. Here’s what I got out of it.

There was radiation in the back of the truck, it was a very small amout, the place that sent the load and the place that was recieving the load, knew about it. The company that my husband works for did not.

The place the stuff originated from has never done their paperwork correctly, the dump doesn’t like that. So the dump decided that they were not going to accept the load anymore and make life difficult for the other company.

The problem is, my husband and his company were unaware of all this shit and they were truely concerned about it. They thought it really was a problem.

My husband had to stay there for a total of five hours. The DOT and some lab guys showed up and everything tested OK, but the dump refused the load, gave my husband his licence back and he had to bring the load back to the first company. He still has to finish all the rest of the work they assigned to him, there aren’t enough drivers to reassign it.

My husband’s company is looking into dropping that account.

The whole thing just send me into a panic.

8

What is the source material that this company is trying to dump?

9

I don’t know.

10

Thank God your husband is okay! I’m so glad to hear that, and I understand your irritation that he (and you) were put through such needless worry.

11

The following is directed towards legally knowledgeable dopers…
Maybe a bit of a black note from me, but would it be best to keep all information you can about this event. Since if your husband ever gets cancer, woudn’t a skilled lawyer be able to make a very reasonable case for compensation out of this occurence.
I don’t believe the event would cause cancer, but I doubt the possibility could be ruled completely out, and someone with cancer could do with a decent sized legal settlement.
Just a Machiavellian thought.

12

I highly doubt that. The courts aren’t stupid–unless she has evidence that he actually received a harmful dose (as opposed to, say, the amount of radiation one would normally receive by spending 10 minutes in an airliner at altittude), there probably won’t be a claim there.

Not to mention, it’s ethically disgusting to try and squeeze money out of a lawsuit that you think is baseless.

13

I have a hard time finding it Ethically problematic for a cancer victim, who proves the cancer could have been caused or contributed to by an exposure to radiation that should not have happened, and was due to companies missusing your services, from sueing.

Certainly any cancer would be unlikely to be caused by this event, but that does not mean a cancer if it does occur may not have been contributed to by this event. Is there any proof that the exposure dose was trivial?

14

As an alternative example. If I had found that I had been working in a building that contained asbestos. I would want to document the event as well as I possibly could, so that if in the long run I found myself suffering from a mallady that could be connected to that asbestos containing building I would have the information available for a possible court case.
Just because the danger of the exposure seemed very low at the time, even was very low at the time, I would want to document information so that if the worst possible happens I have a way to attempt to gain legal recompense.

For the OP, I would be rightfully pissed off about this, and would accept the claim that there was no risk to your husband. But I would save informaion from now incase the risk you were told was in error.

15

The problem is “could have been caused by.” Saying that any increase in risk (of cancer, asbestos-related disorders, etc.) is grounds for a lawsuit is absurd. Considering how tightly regulated radioactive material is in this country, and given that nobody knowledgable about this incident seems to think that the husbands exposure was significant, I think they’d have an awfully hard time showing that what happened significantly increased his risk of cancer. Radiation is not something to be hysterical about.

I’m pretty sure that you’d need to prove an awful lot more then “these people did something that may have caused an unknown increase in my risk for cancer.” IANAL, and would be interested in hearing from one on this issue.

16

Hey, if your husband developes superpowers and needs a sidekick of some sort, can I send him my resume?

17

The OP gave me the impression that the radioactive materials weren’t being transported in the regulated fashion, and if regulations were broken maybe there could be cause for a lawsuit. IANAL so this is just a WAG.

18

Dragongirl…

Here’s a few things about radiation from a 1st responder…

Exposure to radiation comes in three different ways;

  1. External Irradiation (similar to x-rays)

  2. Contamination (direct contact with a radioactive solid,liquid or gas)

  3. Incorporation (always follows some type of contamination incident, and means that the radioactive materials have entered the bloodstream, and ended up in target organs, liver, kidneys etc.)

You may or may not know, that there are three types of radiation, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. Gamma rays (as Bruce Banner demonstrated so expertly) are highly penatrating or “active” rays.

Beta rays are less “active” and cannot travel as far, or penetrate through clothing or other items as easily.

Alpha rays cannot penetrate human skin, or containers.

Shade was spot-on, radiation has a cumulative effect, it’s generally not obvious until a certain level of exposure to penetrating rays is reached. (then stand by with the puke bucket) Safe levels of exposure occur in and around your home all the time, from TV’s, microwaves, cell phones, radios etc.

More insidious radiation comes from high voltage power lines. (I know there’s a huge controversy about this idea, however all one need do is travel in a light aircraft along a hundred miles of those langoliers, and witness the dead vegetation along their path, it’ll shock you)

Generally speaking, I think the shipping company was probably negligent, however the level of radioactivity is seemingly minor, no one, no matter how underhanded, wants a major radiological incident on their hands just to save a few bucks.

Frankly, if your hubby works around this kinda thing any more than once, I’d consider investing in a dosimeter like the one found here. Some will say I’m being a bit chicken little about the whole thing, but I’ve seen radiation sickness. It’s not a pretty picture. If you believe it to be a one time thing, then just chalk it up to a lesson learned…

In any case, I’m glad your Mr. Is ok.

19

The rest of this post was full of good information, but I have to question the evidence for this statement. I don’t know about the utilities in Chicago, but NU around here intentionally kills the vegetation under its lines through mechanical and herbicidal means. Are you sure that the magnetic fields are killing the vegetation and not the utility?

20

I have to chime in on this one, too. The clearance around langoliers is generally perpendicular to the path between langoliers (I never knew that was what they were called!). Radiation, even magnetic energy, dissipates equally in all directions, meaning that if it actually killed vegetation, we should be seeing circular areas of devastation instead of neat-edged pathways.
Back to the OP, dragongirl[, I’m glad your husband is OK, but the company he works for really should try to get as much documentation as possible on this one - IANAL, but there might be some basis for a reckless endangerment case at the least.