The following is a summary of information provided by the licensee via phone:
On February 24, 2023, the Radiation Safety Officer (RSO) noticed a missing source during an annual radioactive material audit. The missing radioactive source is a Nano Tritium sealed source from City Labs (Model: P100a, S/N: 1020140018) containing 94 mCi of H-3. The RSO notified the principle investigator to begin a search for the sealed source, however, the source could not be located. The RSO believes the missing radioactive source may have been confused with an identical non-radioactive battery during previous audits, and the length of time the source has been missing is unknown.
- * * UPDATE ON 10/20/23 AT 0925 EDT FROM JOSHUA YOUNG TO ADAM KOZIOL * * *
The missing 94 mCi tritium sealed source was located in a test chamber in the lab where it was last suspected to have been used. Lab was not regularly utilized and was being organized as a corrective action from the lost source. No exposure caused by this incident.
Notified R3DO (Orth), NMSS (email), and ILTAB (email)
THIS MATERIAL EVENT CONTAINS A 'Less than Cat 3' LEVEL OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL
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