Radioactive man
A man had a medical procedure and, a bit later, was pulled over by the police because his car was radioactive. Seems the police have devices to detect radiation. Who knew?
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
Uncle Pays the Bills
 |
|
Find Local
|
Categories
- ATF (769)
- Death Match (10)
- Eminent Domain (225)
- In the bag (9)
- Notes to Junior (546)
- Poker (74)
- Recipes (142)
- Shotgun Noob (11)
- The Airing of Grievances (19)
- uncategorized (47,725)
May 14th, 2012 at 10:19 am
Got news for those cops… That is a bad faith pull over..
May 14th, 2012 at 10:34 am
Checking out a car from which radiation is coming is hardly nanny-state, nor bad faith. We don’t want that radioactivity stuff all over the place, and the police had probable cause from their detection equipment.
Which is why the doctor gave him a note, which got him out of trouble. Bet the note wouldn’t have worked on the TSA, though.
May 14th, 2012 at 11:24 am
Sure if being radioactive is illegal or possessing nuclear materials is illegal.. Of course sinse these are not illegal this is no different then the police using thermal imaging on homes or vehicles to spot possible crimes….
May 14th, 2012 at 11:25 am
Go to United Nuclear.com if you do not believe.
May 14th, 2012 at 11:27 am
very old news.
THP has them and three is a big monitoring station at Watt Rd. ORNL & Y-12 have been participating in development & training ops for about 10 years. TEMA has a number of SUVs equiipped.
All of these can detect at road speeds.
May 14th, 2012 at 11:27 am
“there”, not “three”
May 14th, 2012 at 12:10 pm
I guess me and my Iodine 125-laced prostate should stay away from there.
May 14th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
Happened to me, too. About two weeks after a cardiac stress test, I flew with my wife to visit her family near Toronto. Coming back to the US through Toronto, you clear US customs and immigration in the airport, which makes things very convenient when you land in the US.
Anyway, we got pulled out of the immigration line and taken to a separate room, which was large and totally empty except for us and three or four officials. My wife and I and our bags were all separated by about 30 feet, and a guy walked around and scanned both of us and the luggage.
Apparently the radioactive isotope put into me for the test two weeks before still had enough juice in it to set off the coarse-level detector used in the immigration line.
You don’t know about this and they don’t tell you, but while you’re standing in line, someone walks around unobtrusively with a radiation detector. Your attention is focused on the drug-and-explosives sniffing dog, but you don’t notice the other guy who has the radiation detector. If the detector picks up something (as it did with me), they pull you aside for a more detailed scan to identify the actual radioactive element.
I explained what the medical test I’d undergone, and the second-level scan ID’d the isotope as a common medical one, so all was well.
From my point of view, completely unlike the grop-and-probe crap that happens with the usual TSA outrage, this encounter was more interesting than alarming. And to tell the truth, I’m glad that they do have an unobtrusive yet effective radioactive screening system in place.
May 14th, 2012 at 2:20 pm
@Ellen #2: Actually, given the number of older people who are flying on any given day, and the number of those who have had recent cardiac stress tests, I would expect that TSA radioactivity scanners, if they exist, would be detecting radioactive material numerous times a day at every busy airport in the country.
Think how many tens of thousands of people transit through big and busy airports like LAX, ORD, ATL, etc.. on a typical day. If false-positives were happening commonly at TSA screening points, we’d hear about it for sure.
Because we don’t hear a vast outcry from all corners of the land, I’m concluding that either of two cases is true: (1) any radioactivity scanners in operation at TSA stations can reliably identify and ignore medical isotopes — or (2) the TSA ain’t got no such scanners at all.
My money’s on the latter. But then I fly a lot and despise the TSA, so I’m definitely not neutral in the matter.
May 14th, 2012 at 7:14 pm
You don’t need “probable cause” to pull someone over; you need it to search them.
The analogy with a home search doesn’t hold precisely because being pulled over is not a search.
As it says in the link, ““I asked the officer `What seems to be the problem?’ ” Apatow said. “He said `You’ve been flagged as a radioactive car.’ “”
And there is no mention of a search of his vehicle – which makes me suspect there wasn’t one, as is quite correct.
(And while “the doctor’s note got him out of trouble” is pseudo-true, it is also pseudo-false; as John says there’s no law against being radioactive or possessing radioisotopes (at least in smallish amounts sufficient to trip these detectors; I believe the NRC regulates large quantity possession with a licensing requirement).
But such a note provides an instant explanation as to why This Weird Thing Is Going On, which is helpful even when one is not breaking the law, but Doing Something Weird That Attracts Police Attention.)
I believe the overall idea is that your “terrorist with a dirty bomb” type will either set it off in a panic (bad for the cop, good for the city he’d otherwise have contaminated – assuming this is a highway stop, which it would be if it’s State Patrol) or be so shifty and nervous that he’ll generate his own probable cause in conversation.
I’m with Bob – this is a pleasing and interesting confirmation of competence, like the not-very-publicized radiation detectors at Customs stations on the roads.
May 14th, 2012 at 8:10 pm
LEOs in Illinois have had them for over 20 years that I know of for sure. There was a case where a Cobalt Therapy machine was melted down in a Mexican junk yard and cast into table legs (think Burgerking/McDonalds type table legs). Since the truck was not Placarded with radioactive signs the LEOs pulled them over and discovered the contamination. The radiation given off was not trivial.
As regards TSA, while I cannot prove it, I strongly believe that they have some radiation detectors but do not know how to run them correctly.
The reason I say this is that I dose people with radioactivity and give them cards to show people if they are stopped. From feed back from my patients many where stopped for tests done weeks to months before (no radioactive material left) or not stopped after being given radioactive material having the test and then going to the airport and not being stopped or questioned.
The limits that they supposedly use are set EXTREMELY low.
NukemJim
PS that is why I have the screen name that I do.
May 15th, 2012 at 2:25 am
Many moons ago I was medevaced into Walter Reed. Coincidentally, I met Reagan there – and his detail – as I was navigating a “back of the building” stairwell to sneak out and burn some tobacco. Anyway, I was given an injection with this absolutely huge needle taken out of a lead test tube that looked like something Dr. Frankenstein would use. After they finished scanning my leg, I was told I would be an ambulatory patient with a permanent pass. So I called out for a rental car to be brought over. I and two other patients went out later that night to find some real food, and decided to eat in Georgetown. Early the next morning, I had a discussion with a very amused physician. Seems he forgot to tell me to not piss in the potted palms anywhere except on hospital grounds. Apparently, there were some “anomalous readings on and around K and M Streets.
May 15th, 2012 at 6:08 am
It is technically a crime, although the doctor is the only one facing any time. Isotopes are used for imaging, and therapeutically (usually to treat cancer). One of the forms the doctors and patients sign, is that they won’t expose anyone else to the radiation. The patient gets a benefit from the isotope, but passerbys do not. No benefit = no acceptable risk.
You can head over to FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiologic Health (CDRH), which you probably didn’t even know you were paying for, and read the rules yourself.