Dosimetry of an incident involving 14C

High level contamination was observed on two workers during a routine hand check of personnel leaving a laboratory where barium carbonate labeled with 14C was handled. A third worker was found to have been exposed to airborne 14C (carbonate) aerosol during the investigation. Urinary excretion analysis and in vivo monitoring were carried out. This paper presents the results of more than one year of lung counting using phoswich detectors and gives some indication about the metabolism of the 14C over that period. Doses were difficult to estimate due to lack of information in the literature. Estimates were based on default parameters and information gathered in this study using ICRP 30 and the new ICRP lung models. These ranged from 0.3 mSv to 3 mSv depending on the assumptions and models.