The following was received from the state of
North Carolina via email.
A patient underwent an Interstitial OBGYN Implantation on 2/14/19, consisting of 45 seeds of Iridium 192 (5 seeds per strand; total of 9 strands) with an activity of 34.1 mCi. The morning of 2/16/19, the patient, still located at the licensee's facility, removed the strands containing the sources, placing some in the room's trash and some in the toilet and flushed the sources. Four strands containing 20 seeds were flushed and the remainder in the room were recovered by radiation safety. The licensee confirmed surveys of the patient and room. No other sources were found. The patient room had been isolated when licensee personnel found the patient with the removed sources. The licensee's maintenance crew determined that waste pipes from the room were accessible through confined space entry via manholes to sewer system only. The NC RPS [North Carolina Radiation Protection Section] dispatched an investigator as soon as it was notified, same day. The licensee will not be pursuing the collection of these sources due to the added hazards of attempting searches in a sewer system."
North Carolina Event Tracking ID 190003
Sources that are "Less than
IAEA Category 3 sources," are either sources that are very unlikely to cause permanent injury to individuals or contain a very small amount of radioactive material that would not cause any permanent injury. Some of these sources, such as
moisture density gauges or thickness
gauges that are Category 4, the amount of unshielded radioactive material, if not safely managed or securely protected, could possibly - although it is unlikely - temporarily injure someone who handled it or were otherwise in contact with it, or who were close to it for a period of many weeks. For additional information go to
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1227_web.pdf