The following information was provided by the
California Radiation Control Program via email:
Industrial Nuclear Company (INC) [located in California] shipped three nominal 103 Curie Ir-192 radiography sources to Miami for export to a customer in Venezuela on 9/27/22. The sources did not reach the Venezuelan customer. The sources were reported missing by INC on 4/10/23 [the sources were never 'lost' as their whereabouts were known to be in custody]. The sources have been recovered from a common carrier warehouse in the Miami area by the Florida Radiation Control Bureau and Florida law enforcement on 4/14/23.
The following additional information was obtained from the licensee in accordance with Headquarters Operations Officers Report Guidance:
A previous notification of this matter was made to the Headquarters Operations Officer (HOO) by the Florida Radiation Control Program on 4/10/23. On 4/10/2023 at 1300 EDT, the HOO also received a phone call from INC regarding a potentially abandoned radioactive source that was originally intended to be shipped to Venezuela but was in possession of the common carrier in Doral, FL. The state of Florida provided preliminary information on the incident and will provide additional information as it becomes available.
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