The following was received via email from the State of Virginia:
On Monday, October 9, 2018, the Virginia Radioactive Materials Program (RMP) received a phone call from the licensee (Best Medical International) that a radioactive material package, Type A Package, containing 4.9 GBq (132.4 mCi) of I-125 seeds was lost in transit. The package was intended to be shipped to Centre d oncologies Dr. Leon-Richard, Moncton, Canada. [The Common Carrier] picked up the package on September 28, 2018 at the licensee's facility in Springfield, Virginia. The licensee tracked the shipment until it passed the [Common Carrier's] facility located in Alexandria, Virginia. After that, the licensee was unable to track the package.
On October 8, 2018, the licensee called the recipient to check if the package was delivered and found that the package was not delivered. The licensee contacted [the Common Carrier] immediately to get the whereabouts of the package. [The Common Carrier] searched for the package and was unable to locate the package after it left the Alexandria [Common Carrier] facility until this report was prepared (10/09/2018).
The licensee determined the package is lost but they stated that the search will continue with [the Common Carrier] to locate the package. This report will be updated when RMP receives the 30 day written report.
Incident Report No: VA-18-005
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