CBRN event in Ohio, Galena area, United States of America on Fri 19th April 2013

An RSO at Ohio State University (OSU) alerted the Ohio Bureau of Radiation Protection (BRP) on April 19, 2013 that he had received a call from a woman helping an elderly neighbor clean out her garage after her husband's death. The man was a professor and the two women discovered a five-gallon can filled with, what appeared to be, lead. The widow believed it to contain radium needles. The woman contacted BRP on April 21, 2013 to arrange pickup of the can for delivery to OSU. Radiological surveys were conducted the next day by BRP, inspectors were unable to identify the material as radium. The device was stored in secure radioactive material storage at the OSU Radiation Safety Office. BRP contacted US-EPA on April 23, 2013 for assistance in identification and disposal of device and material. At the widow's request, BRP inspected the house again on May 2, 2013 and discovered a second canister, identified as containing radium. The canister was transferred to and stored at OSU in the same manner as the first. The second canister had a partial label that indicated the contents might be RA226.