• uphillbothways@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    As others have noted, those exposed are safe and the exposure was fairly minimal. But, these precautions are always important, both to monitor the direct effects on those involved and to allow for proper decontamination and limit any possibility of further spread of radioactive material.

    By quantifying, monitoring and containing you can maintain safety around the whole incident. If you don’t, there’s the chance you’re left trying to investigate, trace and mitigate after the fact, similar to accidents in 1987 Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil or 1984 Cuidad, Juarez, Mexico. You really don’t want that.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Ju%C3%A1rez_cobalt-60_contamination_incident

    • PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That is completely out of scope to this.

      Ionizing radiation is dangerous in large amounts, but this is not a large amount. I’m not even sure how they got their 4 Bq/cm2 number. You’re way more radioactive than that on your own.

      The dosage makes the poison.

      This is more like rubbing a banana on you.

      Those incidences are people finding dangerous, improperly discarded sources and not knowing what they were.

      • uphillbothways@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        You’re right. Those were far worse than this had any chance of being. My point was more that it’s a lot easier to know the scope and everything else about what’s happened when action is taken immediately and that containment protocols are there for a reason.

        It’s a good thing that these folks were attended to promptly and are under watch for now.

        • PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I disagree. This is fear mongering.

          I’ve spilled a lot more than this on me and didn’t even report it. I’m pretty sure they would have laughed at me if I did.

          My dad just got diagnosed with cancer. He had a pet scan, got about 600 MBq of tracer injected, then proceeded to sleep next to my mother and piss that radiation all over the place.

          That is much worse than this, and it’s just not a problem.