Into the Fire

One day at Weaks Hospital, we got a call from the morgue on the second floor. A recent Brachy Therapy patient had passed away. Could we come check his radiation levels? Of course we could. It’s what we do. The Radiation Safety Unit of the Environmental Health and Safety Department got this type of call often. Sometimes it came from the morgue, and sometimes it came from the pathology department. If the call came from pathology, they were dissecting a prostate which had been removed from a patient or a corpse. One of us would go and retrieve the radioactive metal seeds, so the prostate could be sliced up for analysis without ruining the micro slicer. If it was from the morgue, they had a prostate with Brachy seeds, which was still present in a deceased corpse. Either way, we went to check the radiation levels and to ask how long ago the Brachy seeds had been implanted, if known.

On this day, Pierre had gone up to check the rad levels. He came back pretty quick, which was a bit disconcerting. That meant he didn’t go grab a smoke while he was out of the office.

“Justin,” he said, with a serious look and tone in his voice, “let’s go talk to Tim. This was one of ours from just a few weeks ago. He’s hot as a pistol, and the family plans to cremate him.”

“No cremation for this one” said Dr. Zieglerson, when we told him the news. “The limit for cremating a body is 30 millicuries. Based on the half-life and initial Curie content implanted, he still has about 100 millicuries (mCi) left in him.”

The three of us went back to the morgue and discussed all this with Dr. Sangfroid.

“No problem.” he said. “I’ll put instructions in his chart; ‘no cremation yet.’ When do you think he could be cremated Dr. Zieglerson?”

“I’ll double check my calculations, including the original amount implanted, and get back to you. In the meantime, I’d like to put a couple of our radioactive material tags on the body.”

“Sure,” said Dr. Sangfroid “how about you tie one onto his big toe, and one onto the body bag, right on the zipper. If they open the bag, they’ll see the tag.”

So I wrote up two tags. ‘100 mCi Palladium-103. Do Not Cremate.’

All this happened on a Friday afternoon, so naturally, when we came in Monday morning, we found out that the patient had, in fact, been cremated over the weekend. We were appalled. We all went up to the morgue and spoke to Dr. Sangfroid.

“What the hell happened?” demanded Dr. Zieglerson “We gave you explicit instructions: No Cremation. We had a deal.”

“Honestly, I don’t know how this happened. I’m so sorry, Dr. Zieglerson. Obviously, we had a miscommunication. Poor turnover instructions to the Night Shift, and the weekend staff. However, all may not be lost. I called the crematorium over at Mount Cope Cemetery. The deceased was a very large man. The crematorium staff often perform the largest cremations last. They take longer. They started him last, put the oven on auto-shutoff, and went home for the night. His ashes are actually still in the retort, the cremation chamber, while it cools down. If you hurry, you can sift through the ashes and retrieve the Brachy seeds, if they withstood the fire.”

“That” said Ziegler “that’s”is actually quite possible. The seeds are in a titanium shell. Let’s go, boys!”

We got together some supplies; dust masks, Tyvek suits, metal colander, large metal scoop, a lead pig, several Geiger counters, and we jumped into our Rad Safety truck. I wish I could say it was an old refurbished hearse, but alas it was only a plain vanilla box truck with a liftgate.

The Mount Cope cemetery was right across the street from Weaks hospital, perhaps ironically. We just had to figure out where, exactly, the crematorium was. After flailing about for a few minutes on the narrow paved paths of the cemetery, we found it: an old stone building straight out of a Frankenstein movie. We parked, got our things, and walked in. Once inside, we found the friendliest crematorium technician you ever wanna meet.

“Greetings!” she said. “Good morning! I don’t usually get many visitors. I’m Ashley Turner. Do I understand you’d like to sift throughout the ashes of Mr. Mortimer Stone? We cremated him yesterday evening. Our retort, or cremation chamber, if you prefer, is currently in cool down phase. It’s almost safe to enter. It’ll be just a few more minutes.”

“Yes” replied Dr. Ziegler. “Mr. Stone had some radioactive implants, and should not have been cremated, by New Amsterdam law. We’d like to see if what we call the Brachy seeds have survived the cremation process. If so, we’d like to take them and store them for radioactive decay.”

“Yes, I’m happy to let you do that.” she said, beaming a friendly, smile, “but I do have one very strict rule. You will only take those exact items which you find to be radioactive. The families who utilize our services know exactly what to expect in the ashes of their loved ones. If the decedent had a ceramic hip, or knee replacement, or any type of pin or plate anywhere in the body, which would come through the cremation intact, they will expect to see it. They tend to be a bit suspicious that they are receiving the true ashes of their beloved family member. I will be able to explain that the radioactive seeds were taken away due to safety laws, but otherwise you are to take nothing else. Do you understand?”

“Yes that shouldn’t be a problem,” began Dr. Zieglerson, “but…”

Ashley quickly cut him off, and, with a brilliant smile, said “But nothing, Dr. Zieglerson, unless you want to fight me!” And she laughed, with an infectious giggle. “But nothing!”

Ziegler, embarrassed, then turned to me. “Suit up, Justin! Tyvek and mask. Pierre, you get the pig ready. Set up some Herculite on the floor, for the ashes.”

“I have a rolling morgue work table you can use, if you’d like” broke in Ashley.

“Yeah, thanks” said Pierre. “This one over here?” He grabbed the table and cut a piece of herculite, a threaded plastic sheeting material we use, from the roll. This would contain the ash and let us sort through for the seeds. Ashley walked over to the retort and looked at the thermometer on the side. Although she didn’t read out the number, she looked me up and down and said “Ready!” with a rather devilish smile. She turned a large wheel counter-clockwise several turns, and pulled open the retort door. She then brought a three step metal stool, turned to me, smiling that smile, and said “In you go!”

And indeed, in I went. It was actually fairly roomy. As I climbed in, onto the still warm fire brick, I saw the gas jets to the left and right of me. I looked up and there they were, too. I tried to turn back around toward the door and I was just barely able to. I was a little smaller and a good 10 years younger than Pierre, so I was the obvious choice to search for the seeds. Once I turned around, Pierre handed me the metal scoop and the sodium iodide radiation detector. I squeezed back around again, trying not to raise too much dust, and pointed the detector toward the approximate middle of the retort, where the man’s groin, and therefore the Brachy seeds, would’ve been.

“Eureka! I found them!” I shouted. Some ash fell from the top gas jets. The meter pegged high and let out a furious tirade of chirps. “Screaming” we called it. I toggled off the sound. I took a scoop of ashes and turned back to Pierre. “Pass me the bucket.”

I put the scoop full of ashes in the bucket. Pierre brought the bucket to the table and slowly poured the ashes through the metal colander. Dr. Zieglerson grabbed the silvery metal seeds from the colender with a long tweezers and placed them in the lead Pig. The titanium seeds had indeed survived the cremation chamber. He counted each one and kept track with a piece of paper on a clipboard. “We got seven” said Pierre, handing me back the scoop. Ashley had a scoop of her own and would take the screened ashes off the herculite into a bucket of her own.

On my next scoopful, I had several pieces of metal about 3 inches long, as well as some more radioactive seeds. “I got some pins. Did this guy have some pins or something replaced?” I asked.

“No,” said Ashley “those are just from the morgue. They pin the chest cavity closed after the autopsy. I believe he passed due to a heart attack, not from his prostate cancer, or the treatment, or anything else.”

The retort wasn’t too hot, but know that I was always listening for the flow of gas or the clank shut of that door, prank or not. Don’t mess with me on this!

Tim Zieglerson kept count, and before you knew it, we had about 65 seeds out of 75 expected. “I’m still getting a meter reading,”I reported, “but there isn’t much ash left where I’m getting the readings. I think some of the seeds fell down between the fire bricks.”

“Come on out!” called Zieglerson. “That’s enough. We’re well below the state limits now.”

I climbed out; sweaty, ashy, and maybe a little spooked. Pierre was laughing at me.

“You earned your pay today, Justin. I bet you’re gonna wanna be buried someday, huh? Or do you want to be cremated?”

“Not that I’ll know it, either way, now would I?” I said “But yeah, until it’s my turn to go I do hope this is my last time in a retort.”

Ashley giggled and smiled. “Oh, I don’t know.” She gave me a wink. “I thought you looked pretty good in there.”