Nuclear disaster from a stolen medical device

On September 13, 1987, two men, Roberto dos Santos Alves and Wagner Mota Pereira, sneaked into Gioano Hospital, Goiás, Brazil, stealing a capsule containing 93 grams of cesium chloride, located in one. boxes made of lead and steel because they think it is precious metal.

After that, they removed it. The final consequence is that 4 people died, dozens of people had to remove their joints, the limbs and 112,000 people were infected with radiation - of which 250 were considered seriously infected, so that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called this "one of the worst radiation disasters on the planet" .

Unintentional death

The story begins from the Goiano de Radioterapia Hospital (IGR), a private hospital that specializes in radiotherapy for cancer treatment, located 1km northwest of the town of Goiânia's Praca Civica. In 1985, IGR moved to a new facility, leaving some medical equipment, including a box made of lead and steel, containing one capsule of cesium chloride , purchased and used since 1977.

Goiano de Radioterapia Hospital, where radioactive sources are stolen.

On June 4, 1987, Carlos Figueiredo Bezerril, the IGR manager of radioactive materials planned to recall the capsule but was prevented by Saura Taniguti, Deputy Director of the Ipasgo Institute, responsible for health insurance. for employees in the city. According to him, because there was a dispute between IGR and Saint Vincent de Paul Association - which owned the real estate block - where the IGR Hospital was located, and the court had a sealed order and cut it. security guards should all equipment in the hospital must remain the status quo.

Under this situation, Bezerril warned Licio Teixeira Borges, Director of the Ipasgo Institute "to be responsible for what will happen to the" cesium chloride "bomb , and the IGR Board of Directors also sends a dispatch to the Commission. Brazil's National Nuclear Energy, noting them about the risk of radioactive sources in an abandoned hospital that the IGR cannot remove because of a court order.

According to management records of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), capsules containing radioactive cesium chloride - Cesi salts are made with Cesium 137 radioactive isotopes - 51 mm in diameter, 48 long. mm, containing 93 grams of cesium chloride, is placed on a radiotherapy device with wheels to move from one place to another in the hospital. When active, through many complex parts, radioactivity will form a narrow blue beam, destroying cancer cells.

Still according to IAEA's management records, the half-life of cesium chloride is 30 years, but although it was at that time, it was still very dangerous to get into the hands of terrorists, turning into dirty bombs because when Bombs explode, radioactive substances will spread around, permeate soil, water and plants.

When people drink water, eat vegetables, fruits, tubers, or animal meat (which these animals have eaten radioactive plants), people are also infected. As a result, some cancers like thyroid cancer, liver, lung, stomach, and colon cancers appear. Pregnant women will give birth to babies or give birth to malformed children .

Face death

At midnight on September 13, 1987, taking advantage of the guard of sleep, Roberto dos Santos Alves and Wagner Mota Pereira sneaked into the IGR Hospital that was abandoned to find scraps. After a scouring, both discovered through the glass door of a locked room, a trolley with complicated equipment. Thinking that it may contain precious metals like gold, platinum, and silver, they cut the lock pipe into.

The floor of Santos Alves and Mota Pereira are removed from the surface soil.Furniture in the house is covered with nylon and then put in a lead liner to be buried.

At the time of dismantling the radiotherapy car and some equipment, both carried the box containing the radioactive capsule onto a wheelbarrow and pushed it home. There, with hammers, saws, chisels, they broke the box, took capsules but it was not until September 16 that Santos Alves pierced the capsule with a screwdriver.

When puncturing the capsule, Santos Alves sees a beam of green light emanating from the tiny hole. Even the head of the screwdriver has this strange light. At first, Santos Alves thought it was a gunpowder in fireworks but when burned, it did not burn.

That evening, both Santos Alves and Mota Pereira started to vomit but they thought it was the result of the pasta they ate in the afternoon. The next day, both of them had diarrhea, dizziness, and their hands were swollen, in which the index finger in Mota Pereira's left hand and index finger were swollen like a banana, Santos Alves's right arm appeared. Sores . Going to a clinic near the house, Mota Pereira is diagnosed with gastrointestinal poisoning, given a few drugs and advised to go home to rest. Particularly Santos Alves, the doctor washed the ulcer and gave him antibiotics, anti-allergy drugs and concluded that it was contact dermatitis.

But a week later, the symptoms got worse and worse, so the Santos Alves family and Mota Pereira took them to Praca Cívica Central Hospital. Here, Mota Pereira must amputate two fingers, while Mota Pereira amputates the right arm that is said to be "necrotic infection".

However, before being brought into Praca Civica Central Hospital by the family, on September 18, Santos Alves promptly sold a box of lead and steel and radioactive capsules to a scrap collection point near his home. At night, Devair Alves Ferreira, the owner of the scrap dealer, saw a blue light coming from the hole that Santos Alves chiseled with a screwdriver, so he immediately scooped it into the room because he thought it There may be a supernatural force.

In the next 3 days, Ferreira invited friends to see the strange light but as well as 2 victims Mota Pereira and Mota Pereira, all those who came to see the symptoms of vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness only after in the hour - including Gabriela Maria Ferreira, 37, Ferreira's wife.

On September 25, Ferreira sold the box and radioactive capsule to another scrap buying facility, but a day earlier, Ferreira's brother, Ivo, shaved a capsule on the capsule and took it home. on the marble floor Leide das Neves Ferreira, Ferreira's 6-year-old daughter suffers from a dazzling blue light so she watches while eating hamburgers.

Occasionally, the girl touches the glowing powder again and continues to eat. The results of the subsequent autopsy showed that Leide das Neves Ferreira was infected with 6 Gy Cessium chloride (which is a unit of radiation dose measurement), while for cancer treatment, this dose is only 1 Gy.

Ferreira's wife Gabriela Maria Ferreira was the first to realize that everyone who came to her house to see "blue light" was sick at the same time. On September 28, she removed the capsule and box into a plastic bag, bringing it to Praca Civica Central Hospital. Immediately, the hospital's Nuclear Medicine specialists realized it was an isotope radioactivity device.

Rice has become rice

On the 29th, after being informed, a medical physicist brought a Geiger radiometer to the Praca Civica Central Hospital. Here, when conducting the survey, this physicist confirms the presence of radioactivity in the air with concentrations exceeding the permitted level. Immediately, the Board of Directors of Praca Civica Hospital immediately reported to the authorities and by the end of the 29th day, both the Goiânia city government and the Goiás state government and even the Brazilian government were informed.

Mota Pereira has amputated 2 fingers, the palm of the hand has 1 tumor due to radiation.

In the mass media - both Brazil and internationally, there are hundreds of articles, dozens of television reports about the nuclear radiation disaster in Goiânia. Within a few days, nearly 130,000 people around the Santos Alves area and Mota Pereira - were the first two to bring the capsule and then puncture - as well as around the two scrap facilities that bought the capsule immediately. Go to the hospital for fear that they may have been exposed to radiation.

After testing using Geiger gauges, Brazil's health sector confirmed that there were 250 people exposed to high doses of radiation, some of which still have radioactive residues in the skin, 20 people must be treated immediately because There have been symptoms. With the soil on the surface of the house of Santos Alves and Mota Pereira, as well as the surface soil of the two houses traded scrap are removed by bulldozers, the house is destroyed. All objects in the house are covered with a layer of lead and buried. Besides, 3 buses, 42 houses, 14 cars, 5 pigs and 50 thousand rolls of toilet paper in the surrounding areas were also destroyed because of radioactive contamination.

When Leide das Neves Ferreira, 6-year-old daughter of Ivo Ferreira died of kidney, lung, and stomach damage, due to eating radioactive burgers, she was shrouded in a lead-lined fiberglass casket. to prevent radiation from spreading. However, when conducting the burial of the girl in the general cemetery of Goiânia city, 20,000 people protested because they feared that the body when decomposing would poison the soil and water. By using stones, bricks, blocking the way into the cemetery, the protest quickly turned into a riot. Only when the police come to disband, will the funeral be carried out.

Gabriela Maria Ferreira, 37, Devair Ferreira's wife, the owner of the scrap shop, suffered from hair loss, bleeding in the pores on her skin, eyes, and gastrointestinal tract before dying on October 23, 1987. Israel Baptista dos Santos, 22, is a worker of Devair Ferreira, who helped Ferreira bring radioactive capsules into the house, died on October 27, 1987 because of respiratory failure and lymphatic failure. Admilson Alves de Souza, 18, also Ferreira's worker suffered lung damage, stomach bleeding and heart damage. Souza died on October 18, 1987.

Particularly, the owner who bought scrap materials Devair Ferreira died until liver cancer in 1994. Ivo Ferreira, his brother, who shaved the powder on the capsule and took it home to see it glow, leading to the death of his daughter, who died in 2003 from lung cancer. While 250 people were exposed to high doses of radiation, they died several years later, only 46 survived because their bodies repaired the cell mutations themselves, caused by radiation.

For those who indirectly make disaster, the Brazilian Federal Court forced the National Nuclear Energy Commission to compensate relatives of the dead for the equivalent of $ 750,000 and to monitor their children and grandchildren. and all those who were exposed to radiation until the end of the 3rd generation. An IGR hospital doctor responsible for administering radiation capsules must compensate $ 60,000.

Currently, the radiation danger in Goiânia is no longer available, but the people who moved away immediately after the disaster happened, almost no one returned .