The following information was received from the
North Carolina Radiation Protection Section via e-mail:
On May 18, 2011, an employee of S&ME parked a company truck at his house. The truck had a Troxler 3411B Portable Nuclear Gauge double locked in an aluminum box in the bed of the truck.
The next morning, he discovered the truck missing. Company management was notified, who in turn notified Local Law Enforcement and the agency [State of North Carolina]. About 15 minutes after the Agency notification. the police determined that the vehicle had been towed. The explanation for the towing of the vehicle was that the vehicle, which was in front of the employees residence, had its wheels on the grass.
The vehicle was retrieved from the towing company. The gauge was still locked in its storage box and appeared untouched.
Device/Material Info:
Troxler 3411B S/N 13772
Cs-137 S/N 50-2590 9 mCi
Am-241 S/N 47-9185 44 mCi
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