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Box containing depleted uranium found
Fort Worth Star-Telegram ^ | 12/04/2007 | Star-Telegram Staff

Posted on 12/04/2007 3:26:24 PM PST by VRWCmember

FORT WORTH -- A box containing depleted uranium that fell from a truck yesterday has been found. Police and emergency hazardous material workers searched an area of northwest Fort Worth overnight for the device that is used to X-ray construction welds.

A driver with a company identified as Desert Industrial X-Ray was transporting the device through the area of Blue Mound Road and U.S. 287 just before 11 p.m. when the box apparently bounced out of the back of his pickup, police said.

Lt. Kent Worley, a spokesman for the Fort Worth Fire Department, said this morning that a man found the device on a roadway and took it to his house near Meacham Airport in north Fort Worth.

The man's wife saw news reports this morning about the device and call 911, Worley said.

Worley said that the box was recovered by a fire department HazMat team, which determined that its casing was intact.

"No radiation leak occurred," Worley said. "We figured as long as it wasn't breached, it was fine.

"We were just trying to find it, but apparently this guy found it early on and he took it home."


Police and emergency hazardous material workers were searching late Monday for a box like this one provided by the Fort Worth Fire Department.


TOPICS: Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: depleteduranium; hazmat; oops; radioactive; texas; youlostwhat
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Maybe it's just me, but if I found a box that looked like this, I would definitely NOT take it to my house. I would probably call the Police and have them come check it out, but would not touch it and absolutely would not even think about taking it home with me.
1 posted on 12/04/2007 3:26:26 PM PST by VRWCmember
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To: VRWCmember
Looks like it’s right out of Ghostbusters.
2 posted on 12/04/2007 3:28:09 PM PST by sierrahome (Hillary Clinton "America's Ex-Wife")
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To: VRWCmember

If it’s depleted, what’s the problem?................


3 posted on 12/04/2007 3:29:11 PM PST by Red Badger ( We don't have science, but we do have consensus.......)
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To: VRWCmember
If this was being used as an X-ray source, I doubt it was "depleted uranium"--at least in the sense of the depleted uranium used in armor and ammunition.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

4 posted on 12/04/2007 3:31:26 PM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly.)
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To: VRWCmember

Does this story smell like fish to anyone besides me?


5 posted on 12/04/2007 3:33:44 PM PST by do the dhue (They've got us surrounded again. The poor bastards. General Creighton Abrams)
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To: VRWCmember
"Ooh, it has a radioactive sticker on it ... let me pick it up and put it next to the box of rocks that is my head," his wife imagined him saying.
6 posted on 12/04/2007 3:34:44 PM PST by NonValueAdded (Fred Dalton Thompson for President)
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To: do the dhue

I just posts ‘em as I sees ‘em.


7 posted on 12/04/2007 3:34:58 PM PST by VRWCmember (Fred Thompson 2008! Taking America Back for Conservatives!)
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To: sierrahome

It really does!


8 posted on 12/04/2007 3:37:01 PM PST by Eye of Unk
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To: VRWCmember
Yea, I know. It aint your fault. Just smells fishy to me.
9 posted on 12/04/2007 3:39:05 PM PST by do the dhue (They've got us surrounded again. The poor bastards. General Creighton Abrams)
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To: sierrahome

Whatever you do, don’t cross the streams.


10 posted on 12/04/2007 3:40:28 PM PST by VRWCmember (Fred Thompson 2008! Taking America Back for Conservatives!)
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To: Smokin' Joe

I think it’s not being used as an X-Ray source. The article states that it is used in the welds.


11 posted on 12/04/2007 3:41:43 PM PST by EKrusling
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To: NonValueAdded

This guy was a home x-ray hobbyist. See he put the uranium under his pillow, then put the on the other side of his head. He checks to see if the aliens have inserted brain probes.


12 posted on 12/04/2007 3:44:51 PM PST by Jabba the Nutt (Just laugh at them!)
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To: VRWCmember

Helen Thomas’ cosmetic case?


13 posted on 12/04/2007 3:47:47 PM PST by Dionysius (Jingoism is no vice.)
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To: VRWCmember

Maybe it fell off a turnip truck?


14 posted on 12/04/2007 3:48:16 PM PST by do the dhue (They've got us surrounded again. The poor bastards. General Creighton Abrams)
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To: molette67; NavyDude

ping


15 posted on 12/04/2007 3:51:46 PM PST by do the dhue (They've got us surrounded again. The poor bastards. General Creighton Abrams)
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To: EKrusling

They do use a radioactive source for taking x rays of welds. But not depleted uranium. The sources for metallurgical x rays are mighty strong. You wouldn’t want to be exposed to the beam.


16 posted on 12/04/2007 3:51:51 PM PST by Nik Naym (If Republicans are your problem, Democrats aren't the answer!)
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To: VRWCmember

The person who took this device home took an enormous risk. This is a ‘camera’, a radiography source. It is a stainless steel container filled with depleted Uranium (DU).

The DU, while somewhat naturally radioactive, is actually the shielding for the extremely radioactive source that is stored inside. Most commonly, the source consists of up to 100 curies of Iridium-192.

The dose rates on contact with this source, while not immediately dangerous to life, are more than high enough to cause grave physical damage and illness in a very short period of time.

There are numerous incidents on record of these sources not being stored properly in the camera or actually becoming detached and loose.

Thankfully, this source seems to have remained inside the shield and the shield case intact.


17 posted on 12/04/2007 4:02:23 PM PST by RoadGumby (Ask me about Ducky)
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To: Nik Naym
These sources can and do KILL. A simple web search can find pivtures of the damage they can do to the body. MOst of the sources are smaller than a finger tip inside the machine. The rest is shielding.

For example...SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR -- In February 1989, an accident took place at an industrial irradiation facility near San Salvador where medical products are sterilized by irradiation from a cobalt-60 source. The accident happened when the source rack became stuck in the irradiation position. The operator bypassed safety systems and entered the radiation room with two other workers to free the source rack manually. They were exposed to high radiation doses and developed acute radiation syndrome. The legs and feet of two of the three men were so seriously injured that amputation was required. The most-exposed worker died just over six months after the accident.

18 posted on 12/04/2007 4:06:38 PM PST by Sursam Abordine
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To: RoadGumby
What he said
19 posted on 12/04/2007 4:07:14 PM PST by Sursam Abordine
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To: VRWCmember

"But what's in the box???"

20 posted on 12/04/2007 4:14:14 PM PST by weegee (End the Bush-Bush-Bush-Clinton/Clinton-Clinton/Clinton-Bush-Bush-Clinton/Clinton Oligarchy 1980-2012)
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