I’m about to step on a few toes here. Lots of people are making a good living scaring the hell out of us with dirty bomb scenarios. A friend of mine who’s a radiation protection technician ran the numbers on a dirty bomb scenario published within the last couple years, and found that the bomb-maker would have died from radiation poisoning. Unless that bomb maker could gather the material he needed, build the bomb, transport it and detonate it within 30 minutes, all you'd have is a dead body and an isolated radiation source. If by chance the bomb-maker was fast enough, the dispersal of the radioactive material postulated in the given scenario would have made little to no impact on responding personnel. The material would be scattered, significantly reducing the dose rate given off by the material.
A sales rep tells you: “You need the super whammo-dyne isotope identifier with the optional widgets to deal with a radiation incident. Radiation will be everywhere, and you need to identify the isotope so you can deal determine if it’s a terrorist incident.” Part of the second sentence is true. Radiation is already everywhere. Contamination will be dispersed in some places. But the need for the fire department to identify the specific isotope is a slick sales trick designed to get you to spend all of your money in one place—and I do mean all of your money.
We all face the threat of dirty bombs. But dealing with them is not as difficult as we are led to believe. If you consider that the bomb has already gone off, keep the following in mind:
- Be alert for a secondary device designed to take you out;
- You’re now involved in a hazmat situation. Use your monitoring equipment, and set your hot zone up where your equipment reads two times the normal background radiation for your area. Your warm zone needs to be big enough to decontaminate personnel. Your bunker gear with SCBA provides the best protection available to you against radioactive contamination.
- Deal with the injured, decontaminating individuals as necessary. Use your frisking equipment to determine if people are actually contaminated; if they're not, don't waste time deconing them. If their injuries are life-threatening, treat the injuries.
When you get right down to the nuts-and-bolts of it, dealing with radioactive contamination is essentially no different than dealing with blood-borne pathogens.
