Are You Prepared to Handle Exposure to Radiation?

Radiation poisoning is both deadly and silent. Once exposed to enough radiation, a person develops radiation sickness within a few days -- sometimes within a few hours. But they may have no idea they have it, until the symptoms show themselves.

In today's radical world the possibility of being exposed to radiation from a so-called terrorist 'dirty' bomb is increasing.

There are currently 66 commercially operated nuclear power plants in the United States. Any one of them may experience an accident or be subject to a natural disaster.

Hikingware.com wants you to be aware of the symptoms or radiation sickness, and what you might be able to do to lessen the impact of exposure to large amounts of radiation in case of an attack or an accident.

What is radiation sickness?

According to the Mayo Clinic:  Radiation sickness is damage to your body caused by a large dose of radiation often received over a short period of time (acute). The amount of radiation absorbed by the body — the absorbed dose — determines how sick you'll be.

Radiation sickness is also called acute radiation sickness, acute radiation syndrome or radiation poisoning. Common exposures to low-dose radiation, such as X-ray or CT examinations, don't cause radiation sickness.

Although radiation sickness is serious and often fatal, it has otherwise been rare. Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, during World War II, most cases of radiation sickness have occurred after nuclear industrial accidents, such as the 1986 fire that damaged the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine.

What are the symptoms?

The severity of signs and symptoms of radiation sickness depends on how much radiation you've absorbed. How much you absorb depends on the strength of the radiated energy and the distance between you and the source of radiation.

Signs and symptoms also are affected by the type of exposure — such as total or partial body and whether contamination is internal or external — and how sensitive to radiation the affected tissue is. For instance, the gastrointestinal system and bone marrow are highly sensitive to radiation.

Absorbed dose and duration of exposure

The absorbed dose of radiation is measured in a unit called a gray (Gy). Diagnostic tests that use radiation, such as an X-ray, result in a small dose of radiation — typically well below 0.1 Gy — focused on a few organs or small amount of tissue.

Signs and symptoms of radiation sickness usually appear when the entire body receives an absorbed dose of at least 1 Gy. Doses greater than 10 Gy to the whole body are generally not treatable and usually lead to death within two days to two weeks, depending on the dose and duration of the exposure.

Initial signs and symptoms

The initial signs and symptoms of treatable radiation sickness are usually nausea and vomiting. The amount of time between exposure and when these symptoms develop is an indicator of how much radiation a person has absorbed.

After the first round of signs and symptoms, a person with radiation sickness may have a brief period with no apparent illness, followed by the onset of new, more-serious symptoms.

In general, the greater your radiation exposure, the more rapid and more severe your symptoms will be.

Is there anything I can do to decontaminate myself or my family after radiation exposure?

The answer might surprise you.

"Decontamination is very simple," says Dr. Eric Toner of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biosecurity, who has studied what might happen in the wake of a terrorist's "dirty bomb" attack.

"As a rule of thumb, 80 percent of decontamination is removing your clothes," says Toner, an emergency physician. "And 95 percent is removing your clothes and taking a shower — if possible, shampooing your hair. That's all that's involved. No fancy chemicals."

That's because radiation is carried on dust particles. "The air isn't radioactive, but small dust particles are," Toner explains. "You're essentially washing off the dust."

So a rain is a good thing at the time of, or after, a radiation leak. Rain washes the dust from the air, diluting it in runoff. (Yes, the runoff would be radioactive, but diluted — and presumably, the ground would also be getting radiation exposure already.)

Dry air, when dust gets kicked up in the air and disbursed over longer distances, is bad.

By the way, the dusty clothes can often be decontaminated simply by washing them, but it depends on the amount of radiation detected. "If you have reason to think they're heavily contaminated, they should be disposed of properly," Toner says. That means put in a plastic bag and, if possible, taking them to authorities for disposal.