The following information was received from the State of
Illinois by email:
The radiation safety officer, (RSO) at GE Healthcare, called to advise that a package of I-125 seeds which had been given to [a common carrier] to deliver to Sydney, Australia had not reached their destination by the desired date. The package is 6x6x6 inches box of 'excepted package - limited quantity' which contains 10 sealed sources with a total activity of 6.8 milliCi (actual) in a box calibrated for Saturday, 8/27/16, at noon. The RSO has been in touch with [common carrier] since September 3, 2016 when GE's customer service became concerned while routinely performing package tracking. [The common carrier] last had positive tracking for this package in San Francisco, CA on August 28th. [The common carrier] is still conducting visual surveys in San Francisco and Sydney in an attempt to locate the box and has no evidence to indicate the materials have been delivered to an outside entity. Surveys conducted at O'Hare Airport in Chicago where the package was initially offered for transport were negative. [The common carrier] reports that it is still conducting searches and has put a 'world wide tracer' into effect to locate the material as it still believes it is within their delivery system.
Illinois Event: IL 16007
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