Question for Screenplay: Detect Radiation?

[jeffkantoku]

In my story a character has been unknowingly exposed to fairly high levels of radiation for a prolonged period. He does not know he has been exposed and has no suspicion that he has been or that any radioactive material is present.

However he begins to weaken and feels sick.

He goes to the doctor. Would an x-ray machine or any sort of general use machine/technology be able to detect residual traces of this radiation on his body? Or some way that the doctor could determine that he had been exposed to radiation?

This is for a screenplay so if the more visual the detection method used the better.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Perhaps another site or forum that would be more suitable could be suggested if this forum is unable to help me.

Thank you. I look forward to reading your replies.

-Jeff

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[Docmike2006]

In my story a character has been unknowingly exposed to fairly high levels of radiation for a prolonged period. He does not know he has been exposed and has no suspicion that he has been or that any radioactive material is present.

However he begins to weaken and feels sick.

He goes to the doctor. Would an x-ray machine or any sort of general use machine/technology be able to detect residual traces of this radiation on his body? Or some way that the doctor could determine that he had been exposed to radiation?

This is for a screenplay so if the more visual the detection method used the better.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Perhaps another site or forum that would be more suitable could be suggested if this forum is unable to help me.

Thank you. I look forward to reading your replies.

-Jeff

Very interesting.

Here's something that might help. Radiation does not stay in one's body. It enters, does idamage and gets either absorbed and thereby destroyed or gets deflected and leaves the body. Sometimes radiation goes through and does not hit anything in its way, passing through body harmlessly and doing no damage (this only applies to individual photons).

You can, however, infer that someone has been irradiated by checking for typical radiation damage. It damages the bone marrow, so white blood cell counts may fall and the person may get infections. It damages the gastrointestinal lining, and the person begins to vomit and have diarrhea. It damages the skin so the victim can have visible burns. These symptoms may take a while to develop.

So unless the person had a Geiger counter or a film badge on him/her while being irradiated, you do not know directly. However, (here's a tip) if the person had a film camera while being irradiated and the dose was high enough, his film would be ruined (radiation in high doses works the same as visible light on film)!

I hope this helps - good luck with the screen play!

 

[Carb Addict]

Here's a decent medical article on the topic:

http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic934.htm

It may not exactly answer your question, but it is good background. You may need a free password to the site, though.

 

[Docxter]

There are two plasuible scenarios:

1. The radiation went through his body, either via an outside radioactive source or x-ray generator, etc. It does it's damage via absorption when it passes through the body. Radiation travels at the speed of light and is gone once the outside source is eliminated or turned off. There is no way to detect the radiation itself, though radiation induced damage may be inferred since it can cause damage to various cell lines and molecules in the body. It is a difficult diagnosis since it looks like a lot of other diseases.

2. The radiation source is "inside" his/her body, e.g. a radioactive substance is injected, swallowed, or implanted. Depending on the type of radiation, it can easily be detected by for example a Geiger counter and set off radiation detectors in airports.

 

[ariwax]

Since this is for a screenplay and you want a visual representation of radiation exposure, why not just say that his body tissues have become themselves radioactive - a distinct possibility if you have been exposed to a lot of radioisotopes - and put him in front of a gamma camera. If he's got radioactive strontium i his bones, his skeleton will light up like a Halloween decoration.

 

[Carb Addict]

Here's another link regarding Radiation Dose Assessment.