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| Science & Technology |
| Police Cars With Radiation Detectors |
| 2008-12-06 |
| On his way home last month after receiving a PET scan at Portsmouth Regional Hospital, Michael Rosenthal noticed a State Police sport utility vehicle driving next to him and the trooper inside staring at him strangely. The trooper then sped in front of Rosenthal, slowed down, and pulled behind him. "I was in the granny lane, driving on cruise control, taking my time, when all of a sudden I looked over and I saw this trooper with a puzzled look," said Rosenthal, a former New York City police officer who lives in East Wakefield, N.H. "When he put on his blue lights and pulled me over, I knew it wasn't a normal traffic stop." The trooper, Bill Burke, walked over to Rosenthal, but the State Police veteran didn't ask for his license or registration. Instead, he had an all-too-knowing, Big Brotherlike question. "Were you in contact with any radioactivity today?" he asked. Rosenthal began to wonder whether his veins were glowing from the chemicals injected for the scan. "I thought it was an odd question, like I was on 'Candid Camera,' " Rosenthal said. He asked Burke why he was asking the question, and the trooper explained that he carries a radioactivity sensor and that something in Rosenthal's car set off the alarm. "It's very rare that you get them going off for a vehicle going by," said Sergeant John Begin of State Police Troop G, which monitors radioactive waste in commercial vehicles passing through New Hampshire. "I can only think of three or four cases." Rosenthal registered a six on the sensor's scale, which goes from one to nine, with nine the highest amount of radioactivity. Begin said that about 30 New Hampshire troopers carry the sensors, which are the size of a bulky cellphone and can detect radioactivity as far away as 100 feet. New Hampshire bought the radiation-detecting equipment, called Mini rad-Ds and made by D-tect Systems, with a grant from the US Department of Homeland Security before the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston as part of efforts to prevent attacks on the city. On the side of the turnpike that Nov. 21, Rosenthal explained to Burke that he had just come from having a positron emission tomography scan, which requires an injection of short-lived radioactive isotopes to identify any unhealthy cellular activity. The isotopes can remain in the body for as long as 18 hours, and patients are advised to keep their distance from others for that period. "I told him I was surprised his equipment could detect the radioactivity in my body," Rosenthal said. But Burke didn't take Rosenthal's word for it. He asked him to prove it. "I was very lucky that I had the documents with me from the hospital," he said. "After that, he was satisfied and sent me on my way." Like hospitals around the country, Portsmouth Regional does hundreds of scans a week. Nancy Notis, a hospital spokeswoman, said Rosenthal's case is the first time they've heard of a patient being pulled over for emitting radioactivity. As a result, she said, the hospital is reviewing whether to alert patients that they could be stopped by police. Despite his delay getting home, Rosenthal said he is happy to know the police are on the prowl for terrorists. "It made me feel good in one respect - that our money is going to good purposes," he said. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #10 I read a news story about 6 years ago about children who cracked the case of the machine and found beautiful glowing purple powdr, which they promptly spread all over themselves as it was "Beautiful". Yup, they all died. |
| Posted by: Rednek Jim 2008-12-06 14:30 |
| #9 Interesting, Atomic Conspiracy. There was another article involving radioactive medical waste from China and India that was put into the recycling pile, with the shipping container of new goods setting off the detectors in Europe. I was also wondering about those elite coffee machines the Eurosnobs are checking on because of unusual taste--the irony of all the cheap outsourcing coming back with a cost no one wants to pay. |
| Posted by: Thealing Borgia 122 2008-12-06 10:20 |
| #8 Of course, we have Obama to thank for this |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-12-06 09:17 |
| #7 Don't kid yourself that this sort of thing dates from the WoT. Even back in the 1980s, the US had coastal gamma detectors that may still be classified. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-12-06 08:39 |
| #6 The development and rapid deployment (still under way) of detectors for radiation and biochem sniffers is one of those quiet successes in the GWOT for which Bush does not get the credit his administration deserves. It's not that there haven't been attempts on us since 9/11 - it's that we've caught many of them. And used surveillance to intecept others before the plots got that far. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-12-06 08:06 |
| #5 And I've heard similar stories about people given 131I to destroy their cancerous thyroids being stopped at airports and other facilities. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2008-12-06 07:48 |
| #4 I recall hearing of a case or cases like this about four years ago now, in NYC and Washington, DC, where police intercepted a man after he'd had radioactive dye. Any David Hahn sightings recently? |
| Posted by: Plastic Snoopy 2008-12-06 02:32 |
| #3 Back in 1984 there was a well-publicized case of contamination that actually originated here in Lubbock. A large hospital here got a new radiotherapy machine and sold their old one to a clinic in Juarez, Mexico, complete with its standard capsule full of very hot cobalt 60 pellets. The Juarez clinic went out of business, and the machine and its capsule ended up being sold for scrap. The result was 600 tons of contaminated steel. The situation came to light by an incredible fluke. A truck driver delivering a load of steel beams to an American contractor happened to get lost in the New Mexico desert. He pulled into the nearest likely place to ask directions. Lights and alarms started going off, and the driver soon found himself surrounded by armed men in NBC gear. He had innocently pulled into one of the security gates at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Full story here. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2008-12-06 02:18 |
| #2 It is pretty easy to detect. I am amazed it took this long to start seeing this. |
| Posted by: newc 2008-12-06 01:44 |
| #1 Well, that's a hot one... |
| Posted by: logi_cal 2008-12-06 00:56 |