Response to a Damaged Tritium Light Incident

Editor Maureen McQueen has over 40 years ' professional radiation protection experience in the UK, USA and Canada.

In 1994, I was working for a consulting company which was called to respond to an unusual radiological incident in Kashechewan, a very small indigeneous town in Northern Ontario, almost 600 miles north of Toronto. The area was very remote and difficult to access and we arrived on a small local airline with the supplies we had assembled for the trip. The incident had happened at the local medical centre and we were stationed there for the duration of the response, which took several days.

Location of Kashechewan, Canada

At the back of the medical centre, there was a helipad which was used to fly individuals to the nearest city by helicopter. Due to the remote location and the lack of a consistent electrical supply, the perimeter of the helipad was lit with lights which did not require electricity to operate.

These lights consisted of glass tubes containing radioactive tritium gas and a phosphor layer inside the tube. Beta radiation emitted from the tritium interacts with the phosphor and emits light through the process of phosphorescence. Such lights can also be found in emergency exit signs and gun sights. The helipad was situated inside a compound which was secured with a fence and the radioactive material was licensed and controlled under conditions of a license issued by the Canadian regulator.

Lights containing tritium gas

A few evenings prior to our arrival, local youths had broken into the helipad compound and smashed the glass on the tritium lights, releasing the gas and tritium contaminated glass into the surrounding area. We were asked to remediate the area and remove the radioactive material. The area was very easy to isolate and we could easily control access through the medical centre. Since the tritium gas had already escaped from the smashed lights, the role primarily was finding and collecting the phosphor coated glass. Some of this was found on the helipad itself and some was buried in the grass or stones surrounding it. The glass, which was quite easy to identify, was collected and contained for disposal as low level radioactive waste.

We were also concerned to talk with the individuals involved with the vandalism to see how they had interacted with the lights and whether they may have had any radioactive exposure. The local community assisted in identifying the individuals and once we had reassured them that we were not interested in getting them into trouble for their actions, they told us how they had smashed the lights then used their fingers to

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