The following report was received from the State of
New Jersey via email:
Canberra is terminating their license and in reconciling their inventory, and on 12/21/11 they discovered that a 8uCi Am-241 source [used as a check source] was missing. The source was last used by an employee in June or August. That employee had a stroke and did not return to work. Other employees cleaned out his cube area, mailed his personal belongings to his house, and threw everything else in the garbage. NJDEP instructed Canberra to go to the former employee's home. They will send a technician to do a search/survey.
This incident was reported by Canberra to the State of New Jersey on 1/4/12.
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