Prepping communities: Nuclear Flashcards
What are the characteristics of dirty bombs?
Low level radiation dispersal and contamination, acute radiation with unlikely causalities, clean up and decontamination main issues
What are the three critical group event that must be ID’ed and completed from a dirty bomb?
Casualty and pt triage, medical decontamination, personal protective equipment
What is the energy partition of a standard fission/fusion bomb?
50% blast, 35% thermal, 10% fallout, 5% initial radiation
What is a fallout?
A complex mixture of over 200 different isotopes of 36 elements
2 oz fission produced for each kT yield
Describe early fallout.
Reaches the ground during the first 24 hours after detonation
50-70% of totally radioactivity
Highest degree of risk
Describe delayed fallout.
Arrives after 1st day, fine/invisible particles that settle in low concentrations, 40% of total radioactivity, much lower degree of risk than early fallout
What is ionizing radiation?
Any radiation consisting of directly to indirectly ionizing particles or photons
Which is the strongest type of ionizing radiation?
Gamma and Neutron
What are the keys to limiting expsoure?
Time, distance, shielding
What are the radiation exposure types?
Irradiation, external contamination, internal contamination
How is radiological activity detected?
Survey meters: geiger counters, detect and measure presence
Dosimeters: measure personal radiation exposure
How quickly does chemical damage occur?
Free radials in a fraction of a second
How quickly does cellular damage occur?
Proteins, membranes, DNA
Seconds to hours
How quickly does organ damage occur?
Tissue damage and loss of organ function
Hours to years
What is prodromal syndrome?
(.5 Gy, 50 rads)
Effects of rapidly dividing cells, bone marrow suppression, GI effects
What is the primary treatment for radiation?
Treat life threatening trauma first, remove clothing and decontaminate, treat rad effects, surgery if needed
What are some decon agents?
Dry removal, soap/shampoo and water, iodine, toothpaste
What is the treatment for plutominum/transuranics?
DTPA
What is the treatment for cesium?
Insoluble prussian blue
What is the treatment for uranium?
Alkakinization of urine
What is the treatment for tritium?
Radiostable water
What is the treatment for radiostrontium?
Sodium alginate
What are the causes of burn deaths?
Direction from accident, infection, organ system failure, iatrogenic intervention
How are infections controlled in burn care?
Use of antimicrobials, support of immune mechanisms, aggressive infection control
What are the main facets of burn therapy?
Pain meds, mafenide or silver sulfadiazine, debridement, covering old skin, microencapsulated antibiotics
What is done during detection in a radioactive event?
The determination that there is a radioactive component to a disaster scene must use specific equipment which isn’t always available
What does incident command do during a radiation event?
Radiation safety officer to command structure, withdraw personnel until full assessment can be made
What are the main facets in security and safety in a radiation event?
Time, distance, shielding
How should assess hazards focus on in a radioactive event?
Don’t just focus on hidden aspect, be aware of all hazards associated
What support should be had in a radiation event?
May quickly overwhelm a community’s medical resources, coordination w/ trauma and burn centers in essential
What should be done in evac for radiation events?
Pt decontamination is essential, similar to disaster victims
What is expected in the recovery phase of a radiation event?
Complicating aspects with high levels of radiation left over that have very long half lives
