Missing radioactive capsule found in WA outback after frantic search (WA = Western Australia)

Thanks for the update.

Context... In images.

They found it in a steakhouse? Hope they got a blooming onion while they were there.

“An urgent public warning was issued after the caesium-137 capsule was reported missing on January 25 when it apparently fell off a truck transporting it from a Rio Tinto mine to Perth.”

“He said a search vehicle was driving past at 70 kilometres per hour on the Great Northern Highway when a detection device revealed radiation”

They apparently had a vehicle with a radiation detector re-trace the route until the detector went off.

Interesting. I imagine they drove all over the place with a radiation sensor. Some of them are really sensitive.

I was doing some work outside at a research lab years ago. This guy would get out of his lab building, into his car, drive through a garage area and then back into the building. A half-hour later he would do it again, and repeat several times.

One time as he is getting into his car I asked him what he was doing.

“Oh - I’m testing the radiation sensor in the garage. I mix up various types and levels of radiation and drive through.”

He said this as he twirled a Dixie cup of his concoction and then set it on the dash of his personal car. Obviously very low levels could be detected!

He said a search vehicle was driving past at 70 kilometres per hour on the Great Northern Highway when a detection device revealed radiation.

Figured they'd use a Geiger counter or such along the route. Even if they had to walk it. Going ~40mph along the ~840-mile route would take a team 21 hours driving one end to the other. Maybe they had several teams driving the route at once.

You would be stuned to know how sensitive even beeber-like devices can be in detecting radiation.

Free Republic blast from the past: Would like freeper help

beeber-like devices

Is that more like Heinrich Ignatz, or like Justin? (Heinrich's devices were always baroque)

“Caesium-137 has a number of practical uses. In small amounts, it is used to calibrate radiation-detection equipment.[10] In medicine, it is used in radiation therapy.[10] In industry, it is used in flow meters, thickness gauges,[10] moisture-density gauges (for density readings, with americium-241/beryllium providing the moisture reading),[11] and in gamma ray well logging devices.[11]

Caesium-137 is not widely used for industrial radiography because it is hard to obtain a very high specific activity material with a well defined (and small) shape as caesium from used nuclear fuel contains stable caesium-133 and also long-lived caesium-135. Isotope separation is too costly compared to cheaper alternatives. Also the higher specific activity caesium sources tend to be made from very soluble caesium chloride (CsCl), as a result if a radiography source was damaged it would increase the spread of the contamination. It is possible to make water insoluble caesium sources (with various ferrocyanide compounds such as Ni
2Fe(CN)
6, and ammonium ferric hexacyano ferrate (AFCF), Giese salt, ferric ammonium ferrocyanide) but their specific activity will be much lower. Other chemically inert caesium compounds include caesium-aluminosilicate-glasses akin to the natural mineral pollucite. The latter has been used in demonstration of chemically stable water-insoluble forms of nuclear waste for disposal in deep geological repositories. A large emitting volume will harm the image quality in radiography. 192
Ir and 60
Co, are preferred for radiography, since these are chemically non-reactive metals and can be obtained with much higher specific activities by the activation of stable cobalt or iridium in high flux reactors. However, while 137
Cs is a waste product produced in great quantities in nuclear fission reactors, 192
Ir and 60
Co are specifically produced in commercial and research reactors and their life cycle entails the destruction of the involved high-value elements. Cobalt-60 decays to stable nickel, whereas iridium-192 can decay to either stable osmium or platinum. Due to the residual radioactivity and legal hurdles, the resulting material is not commonly recovered even from “spent” radioactive sources, meaning in essence that the entire mass is “lost” for non-radioactive uses.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium-137

Never thought they would find it!

How does something less than 1 cm across fall off a truck?

Isn’t it deep in its machine and locked very very securely?

Really no danger from it way out in the boonies.

Must have been worth some bucks or just a very over reaction.

We found out about Chernobyl when radiation alarms went off at a reactor in Sweden, 900 miles away.

https://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/13/science/swedes-solve-a-radioactive-puzzle.html

"Never thought they would find it."

I was quite sure they would. It was easy with a good radiation detector.

I was at an automobile proving ground a number of years back when a driving supervisor found that an important brake part was loose during a vehicle inspection. He called his boss in a distant town to let him know.

The boss replied: "It's important to know if the bolt holding it on broke, or whether it just came loose. You'll have to find the bolt." The supervisor just laughed. There was dead silence on the other end. After a bit, the boss said: "I'm not kidding, don't come back until you find it."

The supervisor grabbed a pickup truck, lined up his team of drivers on the tail gate, and started slowly driving over the hundreds of miles of lanes on the durability test. They finally found the bolt in the road shoulder on a hill on an access road.

I am glad they found it. Most likely, it would have done little harm to anyone due to the remoteness of the small source, and the fact it was contained. But that isn’t always the case.

I have some interest in this kind of thing, as I have training in handling radioactive materials (medical) so I have always been fascinated by the way inadvertent (or sometimes, deliberate) exposures happen. Having a little knowledge can allow a person to better understand the context of these kinds of things. For example, when the Fukushima disaster happened, I realized early on that there were people trying to make it sound absolutely worse than what it was. Not to minimize what happened, but they had maps of radiation levels that were being shown all over the place that were asinine, and made it look like a giant plume of radiation was creeping towards North America. It was pure propagandistic hysteria, done deliberately by some for their own ideological reasons, and propagated innocently by frightened people.

On the other hand, I tried to watch the “Chernobyl” series, and was unable to. It twisted my guts when I saw that guy pick up the smoldering piece of the reactor core lying on the ground because I had a very vivid image of what was happening biologically at that point.

This incident described below is widely considered to be the worst Radioactive disaster in North America, far, far worse than Three Mile Island.

**********************************************
CIUDAD JUAREZ COBALT-60 CONTAMINATION INCIDENT
**********************************************

A radioactive contamination incident occurred in 1984 in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, originating from a radiation therapy unit illegally purchased by a private medical company and subsequently dismantled for lack of personnel to operate it. The radioactive material, cobalt-60, ended up in a junkyard, where it was sold to foundries that inadvertently smelted it with other metals and produced about 6,000 tons of contaminated rebar.1 These were distributed in 17 Mexican states and several cities in the United States. It is estimated that 4,000 people were exposed to radiation as a result of this incident.1

Accident
Events
In November 1977, the Centro Médico de Especialidades, a private hospital in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, purchased a Picker C-3000 radiotherapy unit containing approximately 6,000 cobalt-60 pellets of 2.6 GBq each,2 which had been introduced to Mexico without complying with current regulations.3 The equipment was kept in storage for almost six years because the hospital lacked qualified personnel to operate it.4

Vicente Sotelo Alardín, then an employee of the medical center, dismantled the unit on December 6, 1983, to sell it as scrap metal at the Fénix junkyard at the request of the hospital’s maintenance manager. Sotelo had disassembled the head of the radioactive unit and extracted a cylinder containing the cobalt-60 source. He then loaded the material into his truck, where he drilled into the cylinder, causing some cobalt-60 granules to spill into the bed of the vehicle. The truck, now contaminated by the cobalt-60, subsequently suffered a mechanical failure upon Sotelo’s return from the junkyard and remained immobile near his home in Ciudad Juárez for 40 days.4

Meanwhile, at the junkyard, the use of electromagnets for handling the scrap caused the cobalt-60 granules to spread throughout the yard. The fine granules were attracted to the magnetic fields of the other electromagnetic cranes in the yard and eventually mixed in with other metals. This radioactive scrap was sent to two foundries: Aceros de Chihuahua (Achisa), a construction rebar factory in the city of Chihuahua, and the maquiladora Falcón de Juárez, a manufacturer of table bases.5 It is estimated that these had already been exported to the United States and the interior of Mexico by January 1984.4

Detection of radioactive material
On January 16, 1984, a radiation detector at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the U.S. state of New Mexico detected the presence of radioactivity in the vicinity. The detector went off because a truck carrying rebar produced by Achisa had taken an accidental detour and passed through the entrance and exit gate of the laboratory’s LAMPF technical area.6 Local authorities realized that the rebar triggered the alert and notified Mexico’s National Commission on Nuclear Safety and Safeguards (CNSNS) on January 18. CNSNS confirmed a wide dispersion of radioactive material had occurred and ordered Achisa to suspend the distribution of manufactured rebar until it was verified that it was not contaminated. Mexican authorities also proceeded to close the junkyard.4

On January 26, 1984, CNSNS personnel detected an abandoned truck emitting radiation levels of up to a thousand roentgens per hour. Since the vehicle was in a densely populated area, it was towed by a crane to El Chamizal Park. Having discovered the vehicle, CNSNS was able to track down Vicente Sotelo, who confirmed ownership and clarified that he worked at the Specialty Medical Center.4 Upon further investigation the CNSNS concluded that in addition to the Fénix junkyard, Achisa, and Falcón, three other companies had received contaminated material: Fundival in Gómez Palacio, Alumetales in Monterrey, and Duracero in San Luis Potosí. It was estimated that the contaminated material had made its way into 30,000 table bases and 6,600 tons of rebar.4 3

Aftermath
Recovery and cleanup
Decontamination began on January 20, 1984, two days after CNSNS was notified by U.S. authorities. Between February 8 and April 14, work was carried out to locate and isolate contaminated material in the Fénix junkyard. Decontamination work was also carried out at the Achisa and Falcón foundries during this period, in addition to tracking shipments with contaminated rebar that had been dispatched to 17 Mexican states.7

CNSNS managed to recover 2,360 tons of unused rebar. It visited over 17,000 buildings suspected to be built with contaminated rebar, and determined that 814 structures would need to be demolished due to unacceptable levels of radiation.8 9 CNSNS also managed to recover all of the 30,000 contaminated table bases, in addition to about 90% of the thousand tons of contaminated rebar that had been exported to the United States.10 However, by June 1984, over a thousand tons of contaminated rebar remained unaccounted for, having been shipped to the states of Baja California, Baja California Sur, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Nuevo León, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tamaulipas, and Zacatecas.11

The work of retrieving the radioactive rebar was more complicated in these states; 434 tons of rebar were identified in Sonora, scattered throughout the state, including in the capital Hermosillo. Eighty tons of rebar had been shipped to Hidalgo and distributed among nine municipalities there, while 42 tons were recovered from the cities of Zacatecas and Fresnillo in Zacatecas. In those states, hundreds of fences and homes built with contaminated material had to be demolished.10

Storage of radioactive material
In February 1984, the CNSNS identified a site in the Samalayuca desert for the construction of a “cemetery” facility known as La Piedrera to house the radioactive material, where the rebar collected in Chihuahua was eventually stored in September 1984. Material collected in other areas was stored at facilities in Maquixco, Mexico State (70 tons) and Mexicali, Baja California (115 tons).11

According to CNSNS figures, 2,930 tons of contaminated rebar, 1,738 tons of contaminated unprocessed metal, 200 tons of metal table bases, 1,950 tons of contaminated scrap, 860 tons of containers with other contaminated material, and 29,191 tons of contaminated soil, slag, and plaster were stored in La Piedrera.11

In 2001, a report by El Universal informed that 110 tons of radioactive waste from the Ciudad Juárez incident had been kept outdoors. The material had been stored in the Sierra de Nombre de Dios between 1985 and 1998, and then transferred to Samalayuca, where it was deposited without proper shielding.12 In 2004, an analysis by the National Autonomous University of Mexico revealed that radiation levels in Samalayuca were still alarmingly high and heavily criticized the fact that the waste had been stored without adequate containment measures.11

Population exposure
According to the 1985 CNSNS report, about four thousand people were exposed to cobalt-60 radiation as a result of the incident.3 It is estimated that almost 80 percent of people received a dose less than 500 mrem (equivalent to 0.005 Sv); 18 percent, between 0.5 and 25 rems (0.005-0.25 Sv); and only two percent (about 80 people) received doses greater than 25 rems (0.25 Sv). Of these, five people received a dose between 300 and 700 rems (3-7 Sv) over a period of two months.3 CNSNS also examined Vicente Sotelo’s neighbors, determining that three of them had received a dose above 100 rems (1 Sv).13 For comparison, the average background radiation in the United States is 310 mrem (.003 Sv) a year. Chronic doses above 20 rem (.2 Sv) increase the risk of cancer. Acute doses of 500 rem (5 Sv) kill half of those affected without medical treatment.14 Chronic doses (received over a longer period of time) are less damaging than acute doses

This is another famous one. The scope was much smaller, but this one really got to me. They talk about how children saw the blue glow (caused by Cherenkov Radiation) from the exposed isotope and smeared it on their skin. Just awful.

*******************
THE GOIANA INCIDENT
*******************
The Instituto Goiano de Radioterapia (IGR), a private radiotherapy institute in Goiânia,[1] was just 1 km (0.6 mi) northwest of Praça Cívica, the administrative center of the city. When IGR moved to its new premises in 1985, it left behind a caesium-137-based teletherapy unit that had been purchased in 1977.[6] The fate of the abandoned site was disputed in court between IGR and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, then owner of the premises.[7] On September 11, 1986, the Court of Goiás stated it had knowledge of the abandoned radioactive material in the building.[7][clarification needed]

Four months before the theft, on May 4, 1987, Saura Taniguti, then director of Ipasgo, the institute of insurance for civil servants, used police force to prevent one of the owners of IGR, Carlos Figueiredo Bezerril, from removing the radioactive material that had been left behind.[7] Figueiredo then warned the president of Ipasgo, Lício Teixeira Borges, that he should take responsibility “for what would happen with the caesium bomb”.[7] The Court of Goiás posted a security guard to protect the site.[8] Meanwhile, the owners of IGR wrote several letters to the National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN), warning them about the danger of keeping a teletherapy unit at an abandoned site, but they could not remove the equipment by themselves once a court order prevented them from doing so.[7][8]

Theft of the source
On September 13, 1987, the guard who was tasked with protecting the site did not show up for work. Taking advantage of the absence of the guard,[8] burglars Roberto dos Santos Alves and Wagner Mota Pereira illegally entered the partially demolished IGR site. They partially disassembled the teletherapy unit and placed the source assembly – which they thought might have some scrap value – in a wheelbarrow, taking it to Alves’s home.[1] There, they began dismantling the equipment. That same evening, they both began to vomit due to radiation sickness. Nevertheless, they continued in their efforts. The following day, Pereira began to experience diarrhea and dizziness, and his left hand began to swell. He soon developed a burn on his hand in the same size and shape as the aperture – he eventually underwent partial amputation of several fingers.[9]

On September 15, Pereira visited a local clinic, where his symptoms were diagnosed as the result of something he had eaten; he was told to return home and rest.[1] Alves, however, continued with his efforts to dismantle the equipment and eventually freed the caesium capsule from its protective rotating head. His prolonged exposure to the radioactive material led to his right forearm becoming ulcerated, requiring amputation on October 14.[10]

Opening the capsule
On September 16, Alves succeeded in puncturing the capsule’s aperture window with a screwdriver, allowing him to see a deep blue light coming from the tiny opening he had created.[1] He inserted the screwdriver and successfully scooped out some of the glowing substance. Thinking it was perhaps a type of gunpowder, he tried to light it, but the powder would not ignite.

The exact mechanism by which the blue light was generated was not known at the time the IAEA report of the incident was written, though it was thought to be either ionized air glow, fluorescence, or Cherenkov radiation associated with the absorption of moisture by the source; a similar blue light was observed in 1988 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States during the disencapsulation of a 137Cs source.[1]

Source is sold and dismantled
On September 18, Alves sold the items to a nearby scrapyard. That night, Devair Alves Ferreira, the owner of the scrapyard, noticed the blue glow from the punctured capsule. Thinking the capsule’s contents were valuable or even supernatural, he immediately brought it into his house. Over the next three days, he invited friends and family to view the strange glowing substance.

On September 21, at the scrapyard, one of Ferreira’s friends (identified as “EF1” in the IAEA report) succeeded in freeing several rice-sized grains of the glowing material from the capsule using a screwdriver. Ferreira began to share some of them with various friends and family members. That same day, his wife, 37-year-old Maria Gabriela Ferreira, began to fall ill. On September 25, 1987, Devair Ferreira sold the scrap metal to a third scrapyard.

Ivo and his daughter
The day before the sale to the third scrapyard, on September 24, Ivo, Devair’s brother, successfully scraped some additional dust out of the source and took it to his house a short distance away. There he spread some of it on the concrete floor. His six-year-old daughter, Leide das Neves Ferreira, later ate an egg while sitting on this floor. She was also fascinated by the blue glow of the powder, applying it to her body and showing it off to her mother. Dust from the powder fell on the egg she was consuming; she eventually absorbed 1.0 GBq and received a total dose of 6.0 Gy, more than a fatal dose even with treatment.[11][12]

Maria Gabriela Ferreira notifies authorities
Maria Gabriela Ferreira had been the first to notice that many people around her had become severely ill at the same time.[13] On September 28, 1987 – fifteen days after the item was found – she reclaimed the materials from the rival scrapyard and transported them to a hospital.

Source’s radioactivity is detected
In the morning of September 29, a visiting medical physicist[14] used a scintillation counter to confirm the presence of radioactivity and persuaded the authorities to take immediate action. The city, state, and national governments were all aware of the incident by the end of the day.

Health outcomes
News of the radiation incident was broadcast on local, national, and international media. Within days, nearly 130,000 people in Goiânia flooded local hospitals, concerned that they might have been exposed.[2] Of those, 250 were indeed found to be contaminated – some with radioactive residue still on their skin – through the use of Geiger counters.[2] Eventually, twenty people showed signs of radiation sickness and required treatment.[2]

Fatalities
Ages in years are given, with dosages listed in grays (Gy).

Admilson Alves de Souza, aged 18 (5.3 Gy), was an employee of Devair Ferreira who worked on the radioactive source. He developed lung damage, internal bleeding, and heart damage, and died October 28, 1987.
Leide das Neves Ferreira, aged 6 (6.0 Gy), was the daughter of Ivo Ferreira. When an international team arrived to treat her, she was discovered confined to an isolated room in the hospital because the staff were afraid to go near her. She gradually experienced swelling in the upper body, hair loss, kidney and lung damage, and internal bleeding. She died on October 23, 1987, of “septicemia and generalized infection” at the Marcilio Dias Navy Hospital, in Rio de Janeiro.[15] She was buried in a common cemetery in Goiânia, in a special fiberglass coffin lined with lead to prevent the spread of radiation. Despite these measures, news of her impending burial caused a riot of more than 2,000 people in the cemetery on the day of her burial, all fearing that her corpse would poison the surrounding land. Rioters tried to prevent her burial by using stones and bricks to block the cemetery roadway.[16] She was buried despite this interference.
Maria Gabriela Ferreira, aged 37 (5.7 Gy), wife of scrapyard owner Devair Ferreira, became sick about three days after coming into contact with the substance. Her condition worsened, and she developed hair loss and internal bleeding, especially of the limbs, eyes, and digestive tract. She suffered mental confusion, diarrhea, and acute renal insufficiency before also dying on October 23, 1987, the same day as her niece, of “septicemia and generalized infection”,[15][17] about a month after exposure.
Israel Batista dos Santos, aged 22 (4.5 Gy), was also an employee of Devair Ferreira who worked on the radioactive source primarily to extract the lead. He developed serious respiratory and lymphatic complications, was eventually admitted to hospital, and died six days later on October 27, 1987.
Devair Ferreira himself survived despite receiving 7 Gy of radiation. He died in 1994 of cirrhosis aggravated by depression and binge drinking.[18] Ivo Ferreira died of emphysema in 2003.[19]

If anyone is interested in this, one of the best books on these kinds of subjects is: “Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters from The Ozark Mountains to Fukushima” by James Mahaffey.

This is such a great book, that is nearly wildly entertaining to read with respect to the variety of ways humans can overcome built in safeguards both deliberately and unintentionally and initiate a disaster.

There is one incident in particular he describes where a B-47 dropped a nuclear weapon (minus the fissionable material) onto a small South Carolina town and it was known as the “Mars Bluff Incident”. You can even search Google Earth for “Mars Bluff Incident” and you will see the crater still exists!

The enlisted crewmember who was trying to fix the issue in the bomb bay nearly rode the bomb down Dr. Strangelove style (he wasn’t TRYING to do that, but it very nearly happened to him, and if not for a canvas bag they stored the safety pins in which he madly grabbed when the bomb he was on top of broke loose and hit the bomb bay doors, pausing for a split second before breaking through them, he absolutely would have!)

(This account is from https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm)

*******************************************************************
THE U.S. AIR FORCE DROPPED AN ATOMIC BOMB ON SOUTH CAROLINA IN 1958
*******************************************************************

Yes, an actual atomic bomb was dropped on South Carolina in the 1950s. What’s the history behind this obscure incident? Bettmann/Good Studio/Getty Images

In January 1953, the Gregg family moved into a stoutly constructed home in a rural part of eastern South Carolina, on land that had been in their family for 100 years. They had no idea that five years later, they would earn the dubious honor of being the first and only family to survive the first and only atomic bomb dropped on American soil — by Americans.

On March 11, 1958, two of the Greggs’ children — Helen, 6, and Frances, 9 — entertained their 9-year-old cousin Ella Davies. The girls were horsing around in a playhouse adjacent to the family’s garden while nearby, the Gregg girls’ father, Walter, and brother, Walter Jr., worked in a toolshed.

HSW General Knowledge Trivia 1

By midafternoon, the sisters and their cousin had wandered about 200 feet (60 meters) away from the playhouse and were playing in the yard beside their home. Inside, their mother sat sewing in the front parlor.

Then, at 4:19 p.m., a member of the crew aboard a U.S. Air Force B-47E bomber accidentally released a nuclear weapon that landed on the girls’ playhouse and the family’s nearby garden, creating a massive crater with a circumference of 50 feet (15 meters) and depth of 35 feet (10 meters).

bomber airplane
A long-distance bomber similar to this B-47 Stratojet dropped a bomb on a South Carolina farm in 1958.
SuperStock/Getty Images

It was the height of the Cold War, when global powers vied for nuclear dominance. But it was an oops for the ages. Not only did the Gregg girls and their cousin narrowly miss becoming the first people killed by an atomic bomb on U.S. soil, but they now had a hole on their farm in which they could easily park a couple of school buses. Their garden ceased to exist; the playhouse seemed to have disappeared into thin air, save a small piece of tin from the roof; and the family home sat at a tilted angle, no longer flush with the foundation, surrounded by parts of itself.

One Serious Bomb
The Mark 6 bomb that fell onto this remote area of South Carolina weighed 7,600 pounds (3.4 metric tons) and was 10 feet, 8 inches (3.3 meters) long. With a maximum diameter of 61 inches (1.5 meters), the Mark 6 had an inflated, cartoon-like quality, reminiscent of something Wile E. Coyote would order from the ACME Co. Its capabilities, however, were no laughing matter.

Earlier that day, a specialized crew was part of a training exercise that would require the bomb to be loaded into an airplane and flown from Savannah, Georgia, to England. As the mock mission, detailed in this American Heritage account, began, it took more than an hour to load the bomb into the plane. After placing the bomb into a shackle mechanism designed to keep it in place, the crew had a hard time getting a steel locking pin to engage. They solved the issue by lifting the weight of the plane’s bomb shackle mechanism and putting it onto a sling, then hitting the offending pin with a hammer until it locked into position.

The mission was being timed, and the crew was under pressure to catch up. Following regulations, the captain disengaged the locking pin from the nuclear weapon so it could be dropped in an emergency during takeoff. When the airplane reached altitude, he tried to re-engage the pin from the cockpit controls, but because of the earlier makeshift solution, it wouldn’t budge. The pilot asked the bombardier to leave his post and engage the pin by hand — something the bombardier had never done before. In fact, he didn’t even know where the pin was located. After searching for more than 10 minutes, he pulled himself up to look over the bomb’s curved belly.

Unfortunately, as he was trying to steady himself, the bombardier chose the emergency bomb-release mechanism for his handhold. The nuclear bomb immediately dropped from its shackle and landed, for just an instant, on the closed bomb-bay doors. Above it, the bombardier’s body made an X as he hung on for dear life. As he scrambled to safety, the atomic bomb broke open the doors in the belly of the plane, and dropped straight onto the Greggs’ farm.

The Chickens Were Vaporized
On the ground, all five members of the Gregg family were injured, as was young cousin Ella, who required 31 stitches. It wasn’t until the family was recuperating at the home of the family doctor that evening that they learned that the source of destruction had been a bomb dropped by the U.S. Air Force.

Their home was no longer inhabitable and their outbuildings had been destroyed — even the family’s free-range chickens had been utterly wiped from the face of the South Carolina farm. The blast was so powerful it cracked windows and walls in the small community of Mars Bluff, about 5 miles (8 kilometers) away from the family farm.

But what about the radiation? All the terrible aftereffects of dropping an atomic bomb? Why didn’t the area sink into a nuclear winter, and why not rope off South Carolina for the next several decades, or replace the state flag’s palmetto tree with a mushroom cloud?

Herein lies the silver lining. The atomic bomb was not fully functional. It had been “safed” for transport, meaning that the radioactive part of the bomb’s payload was removed and was being moved in a different plane.

In the 1950s, nuclear weapons had a trigger that compressed the uranium/plutonium core to begin the chain reaction of a nuclear explosion. Nuclear bombs like the one dropped on the Greggs could be set off, or triggered, by concussion — like being struck by a bullet or making hard contact with the ground. In the Greggs’ case, the bomb’s trigger did explode and cause damage. If the nuclear components had been present, catastrophe would have ensued.

Today, military-grade nuclear weapons can take more knocking around without exploding. In fact, accidents like that at Mars Bluff caused the Air Force to make changes. No longer could a nuclear weapon be set off by concussion; it would require a specific electrical impulse instead. And within days of accidentally dropping a bomb on U.S. soil, the Air Force published regulations that locking pins must be inserted in nuclear bomb shackles at all times — even during takeoff and landing.

The Aftermath
As for the Greggs, they never returned to life in the country. With the $54,000 they received in damages from the Air Force — which in 1958 had about the same buying power as $460,000 would today — the family relocated to Florence, South Carolina, living in a brick bungalow on a quiet neighborhood street.

“Not too many people can say they’ve had a nuclear bomb dropped on them,” Walter Gregg told local newspaper The Sun News in 2003. “Not too many would want to.”

The Greggs remained in touch with the crew, who reportedly felt badly about dropping a bomb on them. For years, crew members continued to correspond with the family via letters, and one even visited the family for a week’s vacation decades after the incident.

In 1977, the Greggs sold the 4 acres (2 hectares) that had been their home site. From the road, there is little evidence that it had once been the site of an Air Force bombing, aside from a small roadside historical marker on U.S. Route 301. To reach the site you have to travel into an abandoned space that once housed a trailer park, and walk through an overgrown path that leads to what remains of the crater, significantly smaller, usually full of stagnant water and now marked by a plywood sign.

It was an overreaction, but...that is what the fear of radiation does. My knowledge allowed me to make rational risk assessments, but...so many people don’t have that, and they get their “risk assessments” from the Media.

We all know how that works out!

Sounds like an episode from the old "Adam 12" TV show, "Christmas"

Reed and Malloy head to a loading dock where two young men just stole a truck to take for a joyride. Beyond the theft, the further problem is that the truck contains radioactive material which could kill them if they tamper with it. They find the truck and stop the teens before they attempt to smash open the container.