First Responders Get Postage-Stamp Size Radiation Monitors

SALT LAKE CITY and EDGARTOWN, Mass., April 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Most emergency responders in the U.S. are completely unprepared for a nuclear bomb or a "dirty" bomb. They have no suitable instruments, and no training.

Stephen Jones, a volunteer one-man army, is on a mission to change this. He is Special Projects Director for Physicians for Civil Defense.

He uses some unconventional methods—like standing in front of a police station with a poster that reads "Don't Be A Canary."

In the winter of 2009, Jones visited nearly all 143 Arizona Fire Districts, training them with life-saving knowledge and delivering a yellow package labeled "Nuclear Attack Kit" to place on a shelf. This contains the U.S. government Nuclear War Survival Skills manual along with two radiation measuring instruments. A report is published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, posted at: http://www.jpands.org/vol14no1/jones.pdf.

SIRAD technology developed in response to 9/11 by the U.S. Department of Defense Technical Support Working Group (TSWG.gov) now makes it financially possible to equip all police, firefighters, and their families with a radiation monitor the size and thickness of a postage stamp. This can be stuck to a card and carried in a wallet. It costs a few cents to make.

The SIRAD RadSticker is printed with radiation-sensitive ink that turns color when exposed to nuclear radiation. The colors indicate the level of exposure. It is a simpler, easier-to-carry version of the credit-card-sized SIRAD monitor, the Self-Indicating Radiation Activated Dosimeter. Jones also provides a wallet-sized 60-second training card.

The most important function of the SIRAD RadSticker is to prevent panic, which could cause even more casualties than blast, fire, or radiation. It would allow emergency and essential workers to stay on the job, knowing that they and their families were not being exposed to dangerous radiation doses.

Tight budgets are preventing government agencies from investing in costly equipment, but individual officers are eager to have SIRAD RadStickers and knowledge about one of the most deadly threats to our nation.

Jones has begun equipping emergency responders throughout Utah, Massachusetts, New York, and Vermont as a pilot before moving on to other states. Local emergency managers and first responders assist Jones in the distribution. For an education and press kit, see www.physiciansforcivildefense.org.

SOURCE Physicians for Civil Defense