Can radiation be felt? If I pick up a tube containing radioactive material, would I feel the radiation coming off it in any way, or would it feel just like a regular metal tube?
In: Chemistry
I read an accident report at a food irradiation facility that touched upon this.
Basically an operator was in charge of a production line where food was loaded into metal carts very much like a train that was entering and exiting a food irradiation chamber.
Somewhere along the line, some component jammed and the operator needed to enter the chamber to unjam it. HE was able to circumvent/bypass numerous safety mechanisms including a pressure plate, an exposed pit and navigated a winding maze into the chamber where he worked on the jammed item.
The radiation source inside the chamber – described as the “source rack” was in the exposed position and by virtue of bypassing the safeties, was still irradiating the room upon his entry.
>On entering the irradiation chamber, the train of product carriers would have obscured the operator’s view of the source rack had it been in the irradiation position. However, had he looked, he would have seen the position of the counterweights, indicating the position of the source rack.
He walked around the back of the product transport system to where the blockage had occurred (photograph 11 (a)) and tried to release the jammed carriage couplings (photograph ll(b)). After about 1 minute, he developed an acute headache and pain in his joints and gonads. He felt generally unwell and had difficulty in breathing. He turned his head to the left and saw the source rack in the irradiation 13 position. He did not press the nearby emergency ‘stop’ button, but ran out of the irradiation chamber and told the assistant that he had been irradiated.
The guy received a massive dose of gamma radiation from a cobalt-60 source. Whole body exposure of 11Gy and localized exposure of over 20 Gy. eventually died in a prolonged painful way. PDF link if anyone wants to read a report of the accident: [https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1010_web.pdf](https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1010_web.pdf)
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