List of Civilian Radiation Accidents - 2000s

2000s

• February 1, 2000 – Samut Prakan radiation accident: The radiation source of an expired teletherapy unit was purchased and transferred without registration, and stored in an unguarded parking lot without warning signs. It was then stolen from a parking lot in Samut Prakarn, Thailand and dismantled in a junkyard for scrap metal. Workers completely removed the 60Co source from the lead shielding, and became ill shortly thereafter. The radioactive nature of the metal and the resulting contamination was not discovered until 18 days later. Seven injuries and three deaths were a result of this incident.

• August 2000 -March 2001; at the Instituto Oncologico Nacional of Panama, 28 patients receiving treatment for prostate cancer and cancer of the cervix receive lethal doses of radiations due to a modification in the protocol of measurement of radiation used without a verification test. The negligence, unique in its scope, was investigated by the IAT on date of 26 May-1 June 2001.

• December 2000 – Three woodcutters in the nation of Georgia spent the night beside several "warm" canisters they found deep in the woods and were subsequently hospitalized with severe radiation burns. The canisters were found to contain concentrated 90Sr. The disposal team consisted of 25 men who were restricted to 40 seconds' worth of exposure each while transferring the canisters to lead-lined drums. The canisters are believed to have been components of radioisotope thermoelectric generators intended for use as generators for remote lighthouses and navigational beacons, part of a Soviet plan dating back to 1983.

• February 2001 – A medical accelerator at the Bialystok Oncology Center in Poland malfunctioned, resulting in five female patients receiving excessive doses of radiation while undergoing breast cancer treatment. The incident was revealed when one of the patients complained of a painful radiation burn. In response, a local technician was called in to repair the device, but was unable to do so, and in fact caused further damage. Subsequently, competent authorities were notified, but as the apparatus had been tampered with, they were unable to ascertain the exact doses of radiation received by the patients (localized doses may have been in excess of 60 Gy). No deaths were reported as a result of this incident, although all affected patients had to receive skin grafts. The attending doctor was charged with criminal negligence, but in 2003 a district court ruled that she was not responsible for the incident. The hospital technician was fined.

• March 11, 2002 - INES Level 2 – A 2.5 metric tonne 60Co gamma source was transported from Cookridge Hospital, Leeds, UK, to Sellafield with defective shielding. As the radiation escaped from the package downwards into the ground, it is not thought that this event caused any injury or disease in either a human or an animal. This event was treated in a serious manner because the defense in depth type of protection for the source had been eroded. If the container had been tipped over in a road crash then a strong beam of gamma rays (83.5 Gy h−1) would have been aligned in a direction in which it would've been likely to irradiate humans. The company responsible for the transport of the source, AEA Technology plc, was fined £250,000 by a British court.

• 2003 – Cape of Navarin, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) located on the Arctic shore was discovered in a highly degraded state. The level of the exposition dose at the generator surface was as high as 15 R/h; in July 2004 a second inspection of the same RTG showed that gamma radiation emission had risen to 87 R/h and that 90Sr had begun to leak into the environment. In November 2003, a completely dismantled RTG located on the Island of Yuzhny Goryachinsky in the Kola Bay was found. The generator's radioactive heat source was found on the ground near the shoreline in the northern part of the island.
• September 10, 2004 – Yakutia, Russia. Two radioisotope thermoelectric generators were dropped 50 meters onto the tundra at Zemlya Bunge island during an airlift when the helicopter flew into heavy weather. According to the nuclear regulators, the impact compromised the RTGs' external radiation shielding. At a height of 10 meters above the impact site, the intensity of gamma radiation was measured at 4 mSv/hr.
• 2005 – Dounreay, UK. In September, the site's cementation plant was closed when 266 liters of radioactive reprocessing residues were spilled inside containment. . In October, another of the site's reprocessing laboratories was closed down after nose-blow tests of eight workers tested positive for trace radioactivity.
• November 3, 2005 – Haddam, Connecticut, USA. The Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Company reported that water containing quantities (below safe drinking water limits) of 137Cs, 60Co, 90Sr, and 3H leaked from a spent fuel pond. Independent measurements and review of the incident by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission are due to begin November 7, 2005.
• March 11, 2006 – at Fleurus, Belgium, an operator working for the company Sterigenics, at a medical equipment sterilization site, entered the irradiation room and remained there for 20 seconds. The room contained a source of 60Co which was not in the pool of water. Three weeks later, the worker suffered of symptoms typical of an irradiation (vomiting, loss of hair, fatigue). One estimate that he was exposed to a dose of between 4.4 and 4.8 Gy due to a malfunction of the control-command hydraulic system maintaining the radioactive source in the pool. The operator spent over one month in a specialized hospital before going back home. To protect workers, the federal nuclear control agency AFCN and private auditors from AVN recommended Sterigenics to install a redundant system of security. It is an accident of level 4 on the INES scale.
• May 5, 2006 – An accidental release of 131I gas at the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant in Minnesota exposed approximately one hundred plant workers to low-level radiation. Most workers received 10 to 20 millirads (0.1-0.2 mSv), about the same as a dental X-ray. The workers were wearing protective gear at the time, and no radiation leaked outside the plant to the surrounding area.
• Lisa Norris died in 2006 after having been given an overdose of radiation as a result of human error during treatment for a brain tumor at Beatson Oncology Centre in Glasgow (Scotland).. The Scottish Government have published an independent investigation of this case.. The intended treatment for Lisa Norris was 35 Gy to be delivered by a LINAC machine to the whole of the central nervous system to be delivered in twenty equal fractions of 1.75 Gy, which was to be followed by 19.8 Gy to be delivered to the tumor only (in eleven fractions of 1.8 Gy). In the first phase of the treatment a 58% overdose occurred, and the CNS of Lisa Norris suffered a dose of 55.5 Gy. The second phase of the treatment was abandoned on medical advice, after having lived for some time after the overdose Lisa Norris passed away.
• August 23–24, 2008 — INES Level 3 - Fleurus, Belgium - Nuclear material leak

• A gaseous leak of a radioisotope of iodine, 131I, was detected at a large medical radioisotope laboratory, Institut national des Radio-Eléments. Belgian authorities implemented restrictions on use of local farming produce within 5 km of the leak, when higher-than-expected levels of contamination was detected in local grass. The particular isotope of iodine has a half-life of 8 days . The European Commission sent out a warning over their ECURIE-alert system on the 29th of August. The quantity of radioactivity released into the environment was estimated at 45 GBq I-131, which corresponds to a dose of 160 microsievert (effective dose) for a hypothetical person remaining permanently at the site's enclosure.

• January 23, 2008- A licensed Radiologic Technologist, Raven Knickerbocker, at Mad River Community Hospital in Arcata, California performed 151 CT scan slices on a single 3mm level on the head of a 23 month old child over a 65 minute period. The child suffered radiation burns (skin erythema) to a small strip of his face and head. In one report, an independent investigation of the child's blood was said to have found "substantial chromosomal damage" but subsequent reports reported no lasting harm. The technologist was fired, and her license was permanently revoked on March 16, 2011 by the state of California, citing "gross negligence". The hospital's radiology manager, Bruce Fleck, testified that Knickerbocker's conduct was "a rogue act of insanity".
• February 2008-August 2009 - A software misconfiguration in a CT scanner used for brain perfusion scanning at Cedar Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, resulted in 206 patients receiving radiation doses approximately 8 times higher than intended during an 18 month period starting in February, 2008. Some patients reported temporary hair loss and erythema. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has estimated that patients received doses between 3Gy and 4Gy.