The following information was received from the State of
Massachusetts Radiation Control Program via e-mail:
Containers from REVISS Services, Inc were used to ship return Co-60 sources from Steris Isomedix Services, Northborough, MA to REVISS's UK facility. When the container arrived on 8/7/12 and was opened by the REVISS (UK) staff, they identified that the basket contained only 52 sources rather than the 53 that were expected. When the container arrived the tamper proof seals that were installed by engineers at the plant were intact. A review of the documentation for the operations at the plant indicate that only 52 sources were loaded into the basket. A positive check of the serial numbers confirmed that the one source that was unaccounted for was a Nordion model C-188, Co-60 source, serial number 41313.
Steris Isomedix Services was contacted and at their earliest chance will inspect the pool to ensure that the source was not dropped onto the floor of the pool. There were no abnormal radiation readings that would indicate that the source was removed from the pool during operations. Because the documentation does not indicate that the source was ever removed from the source module, Steris Isomedix Services has a high level of confidence that the source is still in the irradiator pool.
Steris Isomedix Services, Northborough, MA and REVISS will continue updating as information is acquired..
- * * UPDATE AT 1047 EDT ON 8/11/12 FROM JOSH DAEHLER TO HUFFMAN * * *
The subject missing Co-60 source, serial # 41313, was discovered this morning (8/11/12) to be located in module 10, position 23, in the Steris (Northborough) pool irradiator. The serial number of the source was visually confirmed by Steris, REVISS, and a State of Massachusetts Inspector. The source is no longer missing. The State is continuing its investigation into the circumstances of this event.
Notified R1DO (Burritt), R3DO (Lipa), FSME (Henderson), and IRD MOC (Marshall).
THIS MATERIAL EVENT CONTAINS A "CATEGORY 2" LEVEL OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL
Category 2 sources, if not safely managed or securely protected, could cause permanent injury to a person who handled them, or were otherwise in contact with them, for a short time (minutes to hours). It could possibly be fatal to be close to this amount of unshielded radioactive material for a period of hours to days. These sources are typically used in practices such as industrial gamma radiography, high dose rate
brachytherapy and medium dose rate
brachytherapy. For additional information go to
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1227_web.pdf