Slashdot Mirror
FedEx Misplaces Radioactive Rods
Hugh Pickens writes "A shipment of radioactive rods used in medical equipment has vanished while being sent by FedEx from North Dakota to Tennessee. Based on tracking information, FedEx is focusing its search in the Tennessee area, but as a normal precaution the company alerted all of its stations 'in the event that it got waylaid and went to another station by accident.' Dr. Marc Siegel says if someone opens the container it could pose some serious health risks. 'I don't believe it has the degree of radiation that, if it were opened, your skin would suddenly slough off. But the concern would be, if this got opened inadvertently and someone didn't know what it was and then was repeatedly exposed to it over several days, it could cause a problem with radiation poisoning,' says Siegel. 'The people that use this equipment in a hospital use protective shielding with it.' The lesson is that active medical material must always be transported in a way that ensures the general public cannot get access to it. 'Medical devices should not be FedExed. They should be sent under a special service,' adds Siegel."
But I did get this box of great door props the other day from Fedex.
Just jammed the rod right under the door at the office, works like a charm.
TFA clearly states that the rods were located and its radioactive container was not opened.
"The rods were incased in a metal container called a "pig" that contains their radiation. Munoz said when they were recovered at the Knoxville station Friday no one had opened that casing."
"Everything's fine, the pig itself was not opened, and we're making arrangements to deliver it to the recipient," Munoz said.
Man, I thought it was bad when the Canada Post delivery guy was stealing my review copies of video games from Activision.
The article linked actually says they already found them. What is with these craptastic and sensationalist titles today?
If it glows, it goes.
Want to bet that the hospital was following the manufacturer's instructions for an RMA?
Right. Of course!
Brown would have been a much better choice.
FedEx CEO gets called in the middle of the night.
"Yeah, uh, boss..."
"*Yawn* Just spit it out, man."
"It's about the rods, sir."
"The rods?"
"The radioactive rods, sir."
"What %$^&ing idiot would send radioactive rods through FedEx, anyway? So, what about the radioactive rods?"
"S-sir... We lost them, sir."
"%$^&."
According to TFA the rods have now been recovered, unopened at a FedEx facility in Knoxville. Panic over.
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
This is supposed to be "News for Nerds" - so why link to a Fox News article with almost no technical information whatsoever? For example: what nuclide was involved? How high was the activity?
After some searching on Google News, I found this article. Apparently, it was 684 MBq of Germanium (which should mean it's 76Ge). Unfortunately, that isotope is not in any of my data sheets, so I can't tell you what that means in terms of dose rate...
Why couldn't they just ship inanamate carbon rods?
Why do you have a problem with me using Fedex to ship somebody across the country some radioactive fiesta-ware they bought from me on eBay?
"Radioactive" doesn't automatically signify "dangerous".
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
FedEx (and other carriers) handle materials like this all the time. Also, if you had bothered to do a little more research you would have found this article:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-26/fedex-seeks-missing-shipment-of-radioactive-rods-used-in-ct-scan.html
quoute:
"The recovered cylinder, which was about 10 inches long and weighed 20 pounds, contained four rods of germanium-68, used in medical-imaging cameras. Their total radioactivity is 684 megaBecquerels, the equivalent of about 18 microcuries, said David McIntyre, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The rods are among the least significant sources of radioactivity from health and security perspectives, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
If someone had opened the canister, “it would take like 1,000 hours of exposure to get a skin blister,” Munoz said."
Ummm... a few points:
1) FedEx is, as far as I know, the only major carrier that handles radioactive material. It doesn't go in their regular package delivery system; they have a separate division that handles it (and biohazards, poisons, explosives, and things like that). See: http://www.fedex.com/us/services/customcritical/specialty/hazardous/index.html
2) No delivery service is going to be 100% mistake free. Negative outcomes will happen in life. Get over it.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Just last week we shipped some laptops from one work location to another, and had to go through the process of getting proper package labeling due to the lithium ion batteries being contained inside. After getting everything labeled per their regulations, FedEx rejected and returned the shipment because there were two parentheses missing in the shipping label text. We added the two parentheses and it shipped fine.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
I can't believe that fedex accepts shipment of radioactive material. they have restrictions on explosives, corrosives, compressed gasses, etc.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
" 'Medical devices should not be FedExed. They should be sent under a special service,' adds Siegel."
What a chickensh*t dick! He wants us to pay a HUGE price supplement for any shipment of anything marked 'medical equipment'. After all, he's not paying for it.
So instead of a shipment of a case of wooden tongue depressers being sent for $25 it will cost $350 because it is marked 'medical equipment'. You know this will happen.
If something is delicate or harmful_if_opened then just F*CKING mark it so when shipped. It doesn't matter if it's nuclear fuel rods or one-drop-kills-the-whole-block snake venom or whatever. Give it a 'special' tracking number. Mark the package in bright orange stickers written in English and Spanish "Don't open this package, nitwit! because you could die and take out the people around you also." Make sure that you don't lose it. You are a global shipping company: you're supposed to know what you're doing.
Warn people about the consequences about being stupid, and, having warned them, refuse to accept any responsibility for the bad things that happen when people ignore your warning.
By the way, if something is labeled -Dangerous!- -Hazard!- -Caution!- don't tell me that you're not to blame for messing with it because the label was in English and you only speak Spanish or whatever. Learn a few English words like 'caution' 'danger' 'warning'. It will serve you better than learning words like 'pussy' or 'Burger King'.
Quit whining, grow a pair of testicles, and realize that just because it's "radioactive" doesn't mean the world is going to end if someone looks at it wrong.
Well, I had a working pair of testicles before but I suspected something was wrong with them when I got scared and read this story and your quote. So I went to the doctor, and got them checked to make sure they were functioning. He said they were working fine, but unfortunately he used a medical device with some radioactive material for the testing, and now they won't work :(
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
It looks like they have a separate division for all sorts of stuff: http://www.fedex.com/us/services/customcritical/specialty/hazardous/index.html
I'm assuming that the contents should be labeled as radioactive, and that should eliminate the problem of an unsuspecting person getting a large dose of radiation from playing with the contents of the box.
Why? FedEx apparently allows certain radioactive material if packed correctly:
Look on Page 6 here (may be other pages of interest):
http://images.fedex.com/us/services/pdf/HazmatShippingGuide.pdf
Actually at the time this story was submitted, the rods had not been located.
The story was updated on the Fox News Site after the rods were found but they kept the original URL.
Here is the cached version of the story at the time it was submitted as a story to Slashdot.
http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=radioactive+rods+fox+news&d=1094018597270&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=d977f9e4,d2527ef2
FedEx Searching for Radioactive Shipment That Vanished Between N.D. and Tenn.
By Diane Macedo
Published November 26, 2010
| FoxNews.com
MEMPHIS, Tenn. - FedEx reports that a shipment of radioactive rods used in medical equipment has vanished while being sent from North Dakota to Tennessee.
FedEx spokeswoman Sandra Munoz says the rods, which are used for quality control in CT scans, were being returned to their manufacturer in Knoxville, Tenn., from a hospital in Fargo, N.D. Three shipments left the hospital earlier this week, but only two arrived at their destination.
"We're looking for that third one," Munoz told FoxNews.com.
Based on tracking information, FedEx is focusing its search in the Tennessee area, Munoz said, but as a normal precaution the company alerted all of its stations "in the event that it got way late and went to another station by accident."
The rods are incased in a metal container called a pig that Munoz says is roughly 10 inches tall and weighs about 20 pounds.
"As long as people do not try to open the metal container they will not be exposed to any remaining radiation," she said.
But Fox News Medical Contributor Dr. Marc Siegel says if someone does open the container it could pose some serious health risks.
"I don't believe it has the degree of radiation that, if it were opened, your skin would suddenly slop off. But the concern would be, if this got opened inadvertently and someone didn't know what it was and then was repeatedly exposed to it over several days, it could cause a problem with radiation poisoning," Siegel said. "The people that use this equipment in a hospital use protective shielding with it."
The lesson here, he says, is that active medical material must always be transported in a way that ensures that the general public cannot get access to it.
"Medical devices should not be FedEx'ed. They should be sent under a special service," Siegel said. "There are courier services and several other ways to do that without getting into the general pool. I think that was a mistake that's not generally the way medical supplies are sent.
"If FedEx wants to be involved in transporting medical materials, it should be completely separate and with all kinds of checks and balances so this can't happen," he added.
Munoz says FedEx follows a series of regulations when transporting objects like the rods in this shipment. This was no exception.
"There are regulations on how this type of equipment has to be packaged, the quantities that can be shipped, and we were all within the regulatory requirements," she said.
A lantern mantle is slightly radioactive as well, but nobody is terribly concerned when they're lost in shipping. The question becomes "how radioactive?".
The article references some Fox News paid commentator who's an internist, not a radiologists or CT scan technician who said "I don't believe it has the degree of radiation that, if it were opened, your skin would suddenly slop off". But then goes on to speculate about the potential for radiation poisoning. Given his qualifications and degree of confidence, it would be foolish to draw any conclusions about the safety of shipping these things via FedEx.
I had a nuclear scan scheduled for a week after the 9/11 attack. I suddenly started getting one or two calls a day from the medical center... it's off, it might be a week out, it might be two weeks out, we don't know... hey, come in your scheduled time, we just got a trickle of material, and we can do 8 or 9 tests.
the issue is, of course, the planes weren't flying. the special courier services weren't allowed to operate. the FedEx and UPS planes weren't allowed to operate. it's too far to drive the material. they finally found two containers of material at a distributor ten miles away that was to go out of activity tolerance in a day and a half.
a shipping container for, let's say for the sake of not spilling the beans, under a dozen doses, has three layers of radioactive protection. there are two layers of spillproof/shatterproof for both the short-lived nucleotide and the source that creates it from another short-lived nucleotide.
so, just as drunken truck drivers can move classified "special weaponry" across the country routinely, as we read earlier this week, certain amounts of radiostuff packed to standard X can be shipped per courier flight. not enough to wipe out a city, a little more than you are allowed without a higher-tier inspection system.
but do be advised it's not good stuff to keep around as a curiousity.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Emphasis addeded. I suppose they do that en case the package falls into the hands of innocent children?
A superficial google search reveals that FedEx requires special labeling for all radioactive materials and special packaging for some. But I'm sure they thank slashdotters for the suggestion.
Holy outrage, Batman! Different people are amused by different things. Sometimes they're amused by something that offends you.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
I can, people do unapproved things all the time either because they are ignorant of the potential consequences or because they thing (rightly or wrongly) that the probability is low enough that they can get away with it.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Did they sent it Smartpost? That's the best way to lose a package. From Dallas to Chicago to Los Angeles to San Francisco to Ogden to Los Angeles to San Diego to Los Angeles and out for delivery. Maybe.
Because it's very rare for them to lose anything -- the boxes get there and still have the corners intact, unlike UPS (I don't have stock in either company, but my own company ships and is shipped to a lot, fedex creams ups, pure and simple). Since we weren't told what it was, maybe it was nothing hotter than a lamp mantle (the old kind, the new ones aren't radioactive at all). Surely it wasn't a therapeutic amount of Co60 or something, or the pig would have been hundreds of pounds to stop the hot gammas. You know how that is -- OMG, it's radioactive! -- probably about 1/10th as much as the face of an old big ben clock (which actually can make you sick, eventually) or a few smoke detectors. In other words, as some one who works with radioactive stuff, without a lot more info, there's nothing to see here, move on.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
The real problem is illustrated by all the videos of teenagers whacking each other with fluorescent bulbs across the back, till they bleed of shattered glass, just so that they can get featured on Break.com. Clearly radioactive rods are next.
Ah yes. The international HUB unit of radioactivity (hours until blister). This is why you run a technical interview before hiring or appointing a spokesperson.
Just fill the medical kits at all of the stations with Rad-X and Rad-away and you're golden.
Maybe because explosives, corrosives, compressed gasses, etc all have the potential take down a cargo plane if the material explodes, leaks, etc. However, low level radio active materials cannot.
I was reading an article in a journal (Science I think?) back in the 90s, about the 1918 flu virus. The researches drew some conclusions about the old virus by applying more modern techniques, including sequencing. They obtained the virus from US military tissue samples (apparently the US military preserved tissue samples from dead soldiers back then - in paraffin I think).
They mentioned that they shipped the samples by FedEx. So, samples of tissue containing a plague that killed a substantial portion of the human race were in some box on the back of a truck right next to somebody's toner cartridge delivery and some legal records...
As a former resident of Memphis who knew a number of Fedex employees there at the Fedex corporate office, there are a number of very bright Fedex employes in tennessee, and even the delivery drivers claim that they have greater oversight there since they are so close to the main office.
A single misplaced package doesn't imply incompetence given the millions of packages delivered daily. I've sent hundreds of packages (including when I lived in TN) through Fedex and only had one get completely lost. I've had a similar experience with UPS.
... some dumbasses from FedEx delivered me radioactive rods, instead of blood diamonds. The Princess was not amused, and said that a necklace of radioactive rods would not get her a place on Dancing with the Stars!
The royal physician snooped around with his Geiger counter, before screaming "Holy fucking shit! Jesus fucking Christ!" He then proceeded to get his hairy ass out of the Royal Quarters.
If anyone is interested in buying radioactive bars, please send me your bank account IDs, passwords, and anything else that you shouldn't send to strangers.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Why do you have a problem with me using Fedex to ship somebody across the country some radioactive fiesta-ware they bought from me on eBay?
"Radioactive" doesn't automatically signify "dangerous".
In trained and informed hands, not dangerous at all. However I would consider Fiestaware dangerous to someone ignorant of its radioactive properties.
Should such devices be properly labeled? Probably. Should they be banned from postal services if properly packaged? Probably not.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
You're right, a government organisation (or a government regulated organisation) never lost anything, ever.
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
Nope they just charge extra.
so, just as drunken truck drivers can move classified "special weaponry" across the country routinely, as we read earlier this week,
The agents in question were never driving drunk, with or without the nuclear materials. There were two incidents (in the agency's entire history, reportedly) where *some* agents got completely hammered and the cops were called on them. They were not drunk while transporting the materials.
Please help metamoderate.
They ship all that stuff, just costs extra.
Which is why all that stuff goes through a special part of fedex which uses fedex ground for much of it.
So?
You think people open random fedex boxes and eat whatever they find inside?
It seems if it was sealed/preserved well enough to not rot it was pretty safe.
This thread is retarded. There's nothing in this story has to do with big government vs small government, or public vs private.
Something got screwed up in this instance. In a complex system with high volume and lots of humans involved, that's going to happen. 100% perfection is impossible. It's impossible for government, and it's impossible for corporations.
What we CAN fix is buffoons who take a totally unrelated story and try to twist it to fit whatever ideology they want to push.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Obviously, transporting the active ingredients for a nuclear warhead or a load of spent fuel-piping hot(thermally and in radiation terms) from a reactor would be a terrible plan; but you underestimate the sheer volume of (relatively small) radioactive sources that need to be routinely transported to keep medicine and industry running. Medical imaging and radiotherapy require a grab-bag of radiation sources, some hot enough that they have to be manufactured within days or weeks of use, and industrial inspection, quality control, disinfection, and sundry other purposes require a good deal more.
Shipping them without proper packaging, padding, a well-sealed pig, and so forth, would be deeply irresponsible; but the idea of simply pulling that(quite substantial) mass of goods out of the ordinary path of shipping is ludicrous. Unless extremely well secured, a specialized shipping service would be more vulnerable to theft and diversion, as well as more expensive. A heavily secured secondary channel would be an incredibly expensive overreaction to a minor incident.
As it is, packing it properly and just shipping it like anything else that you really want arriving; but isn't otherwise a big deal, is an excellent compromise between cost, safety, and efficiency...
I agree with you, 100%.
I apologise if this didn't come across in my posts, but my ire was directed entirely at the guy who started banging on about 'market forces' etc based on a parcel company temporarily misplacing a parcel within their own building.
As you say, shit happens, and the amount of shit that can happen is proportional to the size or the complexity of the system in which happenings can occur. If people can make mistakes, then it follows that collections of people will also make mistakes, whether a corporation, government department, co-op, syndicate or knitting circle. There's no political or ideological argument there.
Thank you for your sterling contribution and hopeful termination of this stream of mindpiss that unfortunately I allowed myself to be drawn into.
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
True enough, it is very unlikely that anything bad would have happened to the box. However, consider that if something bad DID happen, what the consequences would be.
Talk about a black swan...
I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but I've had far fewer problems with UPS than either Fed Ex or USPS.
Um, past experiences with unregulated businesses pretty strongly implies that that would be the case. Corporations have a tendency to find the acceptable loss to the end user that maximizes their profits, never mind that people assume, and rightly so that the business is going to be taking things more seriously than that.
While it's unreasonable to assume that 100% of packages will get where they need to go, that's not the same thing as letting a carrier off the hook for making decisions primarily upon cost efficiency.
No, but the tracking system should tell you where the items went. It's one thing to lose benign easily replaceable items, and quite another to lose radioactive materials. Granted the materials were fairly low grade, but that's still radioactive material that's lost and could be irradiating anybody as we speak.
Plus, while this stuff is apparently relatively harmless, it is quite useful if you're wanting to scare the crap out of people with a radiation scare.
I'd hazard a guess that the reason why they have a separate system for it is because the consequences are so much higher than for other packages. Consequently I would assume that they're charging more and paying closer attention.
"This is why you run a technical interview before hiring or appointing a spokesperson."
But then again, I don't believe everything I read on the internet, either. This "story" is just another anecdote. For all I know, said "spokesman" actually is the guy who works at Denny's.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I cannot believe someone thought it was a good idea to FedEx radioactive material. Someone needs to be fired.
Why would it be wrong to hire a shipping company - in this case, FedEx - which has extensive experience in handling moderately hazardous materials and is properly licensed to do so?
FedEx Ground will handle Class 7 Radioactive Material I materials (bearing the 'radioactive white I' placards and labels) only; that's the lowest class.
Material meets the White I threshold if the measured radioactivity at the surface of the shipping package does not exceed 0.5 millirem per hour; most White I packages actually fall far below that level. The legal maximum exposure for civilians in the U.S. is 500 millirem per year, and 'radiation workers' are permitted ten times that. Even if we assume that the package is right at the edge of what's permissible, you would have to strap the box directly to your ass for more than a month to get close to the civilian limit.
Could one get a higher dose if you opened the package and removed the radioactive material from its inner container(s)? Sure -- but that takes a special kind of stupid. All of the packaging is going to be emblazoned with the 'radiation' trefoil symbol; you've got to assume that even if the package were routed to the wrong destination, the receiver is going to hand it right back to the FedEx guy. (Unless, of course, it's a recipient who regularly handles radioactives, in which case, still no worries.)
This isn't a case where someone decided to cut corners and put radioactive material in an unmarked box to save a few bucks on shipping. It was properly packaged, properly labelled material, accompanied by all the appropriate paperwork and handed over to an approved, accredited, regulated shipper. Yes, someone at FedEx screwed up, but it looks like their procedures for handling lost packages seem to have worked as they should. This is a non-story which is being blown out of proportion by people who don't understand and can't appropriately weigh the risks of handling radioactive materials. ~~~~
~Idarubicin
Doubtful, it would have been as dangerous had it emerged today. Part of the problem was that it was incorrectly believed to be a strain of bacteria rather than a strain of virus. Plus we have much more available in terms of antivirals and a much better understanding of how to keep people safe. The masks probably did more harm than good as they only blocked the influenza virus in airborne spit.
Additionally, much less of the work that people do requires people to actually leave the home, and we now know that the further away you stand the less likely you are to get infected. Take a look at what happened with the H1N1, if you don't believe me.
Fiestaware is completely safe, the only real danger it could possibly present is heavy metal poisoning and even that is not terribly credible.
Let me guess, you think only trained and certified people should be allowed to change the batteries in smoke detectors too. Or did you not know they contained radioactive materials? Hell, even analogue wristwatches commonly contain radioactive materials. Do you think we should start sticking great big "DANGER: RADIOACTIVE" stickers on those too? ...wait a second. You don't happen to be employed be the State of California, do you?
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
"2) No delivery service is going to be 100% mistake free. Negative outcomes will happen in life. Get over it." FedEx is notoriously bad. As somebody who deals with UPS and FedEx daily, I feel very comfortable saying that FedEx provides abysmal service when compared to UPS.
I don't respond to AC's.
I do agree with your arguments. Additionally, if you figure that we're the descendants of the survivors of that plague it stands to reason that we'd have a larger level of genetic resistance against it as well. Who can say for sure though...
As anyone searching for "Goiania 1986 Cesium" can note, one of the more serious radioactive accidents ever to take place in the World was due to Cesium used for medical purposes from an X-ray machine
-><- no
we had to switch from UPS (they are cheaper) to Fedex because of unreliable delivery. When we're constantly shipping packages to customers and 1 in 100 gets lost, that's a big deal.
It's somewhat telling that UPS doesn't even touch radioactive stuff.
We ship radioactive material via FedEx all the time. It's properly packaged, labeled, and there's nothing particularly exciting about it. In fact, the dry ice that it is packed in is generally considered to be more dangerous than the radioactivity itself. (In this case, I'm talking about 250Ci of 32P ATP, which is laughably small, but I believe you can send milicurie amounts through FedEx when properly packaged.)
http://www.donarmstrong.com
Tennessee is one of those places where the best and brightest and most educated will relocate to? Or one of the places where the smartest and most capable people tend to stay?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Ra-di-a-tion! Yes, indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense! Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Yea, nevermind the fact that said spokesperson listed the actual radioactivity in two separate valid units, and only added that last bit for the layperson.
You're not a people person are you?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Negative outcomes will happen in life. Get over it.
Man you really hit the nail on the head with that one. You've expressed what I see as the major problem with today's world as succinctly as I've ever seen it put before. I should make that my sig.
Everyone buys into the mainstream media/government scaremongering so badly that they have totally lost perspective of what they are giving up to mitigate what is really a tiny risk - we are so scared of things like terrorism, germs, kids having an accident/getting sick/getting snatched by a nutter that we don't really enjoy life any more.
</OldManRant>
... this shipment of metal rods that seem always to be warm. Meanwhile, I'm wondering what happened to the inflatable sex doll I ordered.
Have gnu, will travel.
What we CAN fix is buffoons who take a totally unrelated story and try to twist it to fit whatever ideology they want to push.
How do you propose to fix them?
I've sent hazardous materials, some radioactive via a variety of carriers. LET ME TELL YOU that FedEx is much worse. They go blabbing all over the news making an embarrassing lot of fuss and generally alarming the public when they lose something like this. UPS however they just don't care. Lose a pound of plutonium, no big deal, happens all the time just fill in the insurance claim and go on your way and we certainly won't tell anyone.
So yes it is not sensible at all to use FedEx for these sorts of things. Way too much hassle.
We return used sealed sources to the manufacturer for our equipment ~ every 6 months. It's completely normal, appropriate and LEGAL to utilize Fedex to ship radioactive materials (RAM) so long as you comply with all DOT regulations. Assuming that these were used sealed sources being returned to manufacturer, they were most likely fairly well decayed and probably being shipped either as a Class I or in excepted packaging. And as they're SEALED SOURCES, there's no risk of contamination unless someone intercepted it to blow it up for various nefarious purposes. You used to be able to ship via UPS and DHL but they pulled out of the hazardous material shipment business. RAM isn't the only hazardous material moving through fedex's shipment facilities. You have corrosives, flammables and biological specimens being shipped via Fedex all over the country and the world. So don't let a little bit of radioactivity scare you. There's a lot more dangerous stuff that can kill you a lot sooner than some sealed sources if you're gonna get all in a huff about using Fedex.
Um...actually they're the ONLY ones in the US that ship RAM. UPS and DHL no longer do it. But Fedex does ship explosives, corrosives, compressed gasses, biological specimens and toxins, etc.
erm, not quite. The link you pointed to is for the Custom Critical services, which is a separate division from FedEx Ground and FedEx Express. FedEx Express also accepts "dangerous goods". Certain classes of DG is loaded into special containers and placed in a crew accessible position and hooked up to a fire extinguisher in case of in-flight fire. Radioactives are generally loaded further aft in the load to protect the crew from errant radiation. there are limits on the amount of Radioactive material, the classes of radiactive material (IIRC: class 1 1.0 rads), and total flight rad load. So, radioactive shipments are sorta kept separate from the regular sorting process (these are considered to be non-conveyable and are hand sorted and then moved to the flight area where they can be processed by the line DG agent or a Ramp Agent and loaded into a container containing regular freight. Once it's at the destination, a courier will deliver the package as normal, but with some consideration for time/distance from the driver's seat.
(I was a memphis ramp agent/dg specialist for ~8 years)
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
On their answering machine. True story... an acquaintance once received a package that was large, and low density, filled with a lot of foam peanuts. There were scuff marks on the top of the package, and the single layer of tape down the seam on top was not stuck to the cardboard. The package contained not only HIS goods, but also a much smaller package of heavy machine parts... FROM someone else, TO someone else. The smaller package had clearly fallen onto his, and had enough momentum to open the flap and fall inside, and the flap then sprang back. He called the courier, but they never got back to him.
Also, the overwhelming majority of our radioactive shipments were radioactive medicines. If a package misses sort, FedEx will actually charter a flight to ship rads out at times, that's how important the rads are. They usually have a very short lifespan and a delay of a day means the medicine is worthless). I hated to see rads left behind because someone's life could be depending on that medicine. Same with organs, etc. I can't speak for the other ramp agents/DG specialists, but I took it as a point of pride to get this stuff out.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Fedex; creating superheros since 1948.
Probably somebody planned to BBQ them...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
1 in 100? You sure? That's terrible.
Maybe should outsource to a bunch of Indians:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala#Supply_Chain
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/6-24-2002-20997.asp
"Forbes awarded the humble dabba-wallahs a 6 Sigma performance rating, a term used in quality assurance if the percentage of correctness is 99.9999999 or more. In other words, for every six million tiffins delivered, only one fails to arrive. This error rate means in effect that a tiffin goes astray only once every two months."
That said, Forbes' percentage of correctness isn't that high, so they might have got that wrong ;).
We can fix that? We're going to be billionaires!
well,
yet another example of companies and individuals trying to maximize their profit margins, usually at the expense of safety. it used to be that such materials were transported only by U.S.N.R.C. couriers. I guess that some manufacturers figured they'd save a few dollars in shipping. now we have a possible radiation hazard loose on the general public. at least they haven't started with dangerous biologics yet (or have they?).
Understanding is much like a 3-edged-sword. in this: there are always 2 sides and the truth.
Looks like they do "White Glove" service for radioactive materials.
With a name like that it's hard to imagine them losing something they're "white-gloving"
TFA: FedEx Custom Critical White Glove Services feature specially trained drivers and specialty equipment for the safe transport of your most sensitive shipments. These services include a full range of temperature-control offerings as well as a complete suite of Secure Transportation Solutions.
Sounds like total FAIL on their part. They claim to have this under control?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I will not use FedEx if I can avoid them. I had my laptop shipped off for repairs, paid through the nose to get it back promptly, and they won't deliver up my mountain from El Paso when it's snowing. And they won't give their driver's chains because "they're dangerous". This is from the location manager's mouth. UPS will, I've seen a UPS truck back down my road to deliver my meds. My worst possible case is I can pick up my package from the UPS depot at the nearest town 20 miles away. I couldn't even get FedEx to call me when their driver was in that town for me to pick it up.
I could have driven to Phoenix (500 miles one-way), gotten the laptop repaired, and driven back and saved both time and money.
Never again. Now whenever I order anything, I ask them what carrier they use and tell them to use UPS or USPS.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Yeah, I see something like that on the intro to the Simpsons every week.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
The article implies though it doesn't explicitly state that the package was sent via a normal fedex service rtather than one of thier special ones. There isn't much a carrier can do if an idiot sends something by an unsutiable service and fails to make them aware of the packages true contents until after the package is lost!
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Caution! Dangerous Chemicals!
Cuidado! Caramelo que es delicioso!
I do not speak Spanish, but your comment still did not look right, so off to Google Translate. ... I fell on the floor laughing.
Sure enough,
Dare I say mod-parent-funny.
How long to sprout banjos?
Spanish- Atención! Productos químicos peligrosos!
French- Attention! Produits chimiques dangereux!
German- Achtung! Gefährliche Chemikalien!
I like Achtung, it's a fun word to say.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork