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Obtaining the Picker C-3000
-Originally owned by Methodist Hospital in Lubbock, TX that instead of paying for dismantling, opted to sell the machine
-X-ray Equipment Company of Fort Worth bought the machine and sold the unit to Centro Medico de Especialidades in Juarez, Chihuahua
-Picker contains approximatel 6010 cobalt-60 pellets of 2.6 GBq each -
Picking apart the Picker
-The machine remained in storage due to the medical center being unable to hire a specialist
-An electrician Vicente Sotelo Alardin, an employee to the medical center, along with a fellow employee dismantled the machine to sell for scraps per managers request
-The capsule containing the cobalt-60 pellets was forced open in the bed of the truck and then sold at Jonke Fenix junkyard
-Capsule held 400 Ci of radioactive cobalt. Each pellet produced 25 rads per hour at two inches -
Le Truck
-Contaminated with cobalt-60
-Suffered mechanical failure upon Vicentes return home
-Remained near his home in Ciudad Juarez for 40 days and produced 50 rads an hour a yard away
-Children played on the truck while it remained parked. -
Period: to
The Spread
-The electromagnetic cranes at the junkyard helped spread the pellets throughout the yard
-The pellets mixed with materials and the scrap was sent to two foundries
-Aceros de Chihuahua (Achisa), a rebar factory, and Falcon de Juarez, a table base manufacturer.
-Items were exported to the USA and across Mexico by January -
Wrong Way at the Right Place
-Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico detects radioactivity
-A truck carrying rebar had taken an accidental detour and passed by the entrance and exit of the labs LAMPF technical area -
Radioactive Rebar
-The rebar was found to be the culprit for triggering the detector
-Mexico's National Commission on Nuclear Safety and Safeguards (CNSNS) was immediately notified
-CNSNS confirmed wide spread of radioactive material and ordered Achisa, the rebar manufacturer, to suspend distribution of rebar
-Junkyard was also closed -
Le Truck Again
-CNSNS detect abandoned truck emitting 1000 roentgens per hour
-Truck was towed to El Chamizal Park to remove it from the densely populated area
-Vicente was tracked down and were able to deduce that Fenix junkyard, Achisa and Falcon all recieved contaminated matierals along with three other companies
-An estimated 30,000 tables and 6600 tons of rebar were contaminated. -
Cleanup Everybody Everywhere
-Decontamination began 20th of January
-Between February 8 and April 14 locating and isolating contaminated material was done for the junkyard and the two foundries
-Shipments of contaminated rebar were tracked to 17 Mexican states
-2360 tons of unused rebar recovered and 814 structures to be demolished due to high levels of radiation
-All 30,000 table bases recovered -
Exposure
-4000 people exposed to cobalt-60 radiation
-80% received les than 500mrem, 18% 0.5-25 rems, and 2% greater than 25 rems.
-5 people received 3-7 Sv over a period of 2 months
-Vicente's neighbors received above 1 Sv
-Amongst the junkyard workers one man received a radiation burn on his hand, others experienced blackened fingernails and reduced sperm counts -
Squirilling Away Radioactive Material
-Samalayuca desert designated as the storage site for the contaminated material
-A facility known as La Piedrera was constructed for storage
-Contaminated rebar, unprocessed metal, metal table bases, scrap, random material, soil, slag, and plaster were stored in La Piedrera