A Mobile Alert System for Preparing the Delivery of Radiation Mitigators

A mobile system allowing hospital medical personnel to prepare for the administration of radiation mitigators prior to receiving casualties is desirable.

We evaluated a portable spectroscopic personal radiation detector for use as an ambulance-based unit for early detection and identification of gamma radiation. We tested the sensitivity, time-to-identification, and radionuclide identification accuracy rates, change in detector response to vehicle operation, interference from cardiac equipment, and internal versus external radiation source location.

We detected radiation sources in each of 119 trials using a humanoid phantom in a moving ambulance with a primary radionuclide identification accuracy of 96%. Typical identification time was around two minutes (149±95 s).

Our observations suggest this mobile system is a potential pre-hospital arrival tool allowing for rapid preparation of radiation mitigators.