Why on earth would you steal a truck carrying nuclear waste?

[Plu]

It's really beyond me, but I simply cannot feel sorry for the people who did just that and are probably going to die from radio-active poisoning  

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013 ... k-of-dying

[Jutter]

That begs the question. Did the thiefs know what was in the truck when they stole it?
Thefts like this have ocurred before, and it always appears to be the truck they were after, unaware of it's radioactive load.

[Jason78]

Why on earth would you steal a truck carrying nuclear waste?

Shits and giggles?

[Hopist]

He said those who exposed themselves to the pellets could not contaminate others.

Is this really true?

What about intimate contact, saliva exchange etc

[Plu]

Radiation tears right through you, fucking up your body in the proces. These people aren't radioactive, they just have all sorts of internal bleeding and cancers going on in their bodies.

Unless they swallowed some of the pellets, but then they'd be dead for sure.

[GrinningYMIR]

Radiation tears right through you, fucking up your body in the proces. These people aren't radioactive, they just have all sorts of internal bleeding and cancers going on in their bodies.

Unless they swallowed some of the pellets, but then they'd be dead for sure.

You can't smell it, you can't see it, you can't taste it, and you can't hear it. But it's there

[Plu]

You can't smell it, you can't see it, you can't taste it, and you can't hear it.

But you can measure it, so it's still more real than many other things that you can't see, smell, taste or hear :P

[josephpalazzo]

That begs the question. Did the thiefs know what was in the truck when they stole it?
Thefts like this have ocurred before, and it always appears to be the truck they were after, unaware of it's radioactive load.

OTOH, if they knew what was in the truck, perhaps they were after nuclear material to make a dirty bomb. That might be farfetched, but it can't be ruled out.

[stromboli]

From what I read, they were likely stealing the truck because it had a crane on it. The concern was that the radioactive material, Cobalt 60, could be used to make a dirty bomb. So it is likely that the perpetrators are dead or dying, since they apparently exposed themselves to the material.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

This may have been the least smart thing they ever did, but I still kind of feel almost sorry for them despite being thieves.

[aitm]

yo habla espanole?

[SGOS]

That begs the question. Did the thiefs know what was in the truck when they stole it?
Thefts like this have ocurred before, and it always appears to be the truck they were after, unaware of it's radioactive load.

That would be my guess in this situation.

[SGOS]

You can't smell it, you can't see it, you can't taste it, and you can't hear it.

But you can measure it, so it's still more real than many other things that you can't see, smell, taste or hear :P

You mean like the internal personal Godometers some people claim to have inside their heads?... or hearts, or something.

[SilentFutility]

He said those who exposed themselves to the pellets could not contaminate others.

Is this really true?

What about intimate contact, saliva exchange etc

Yes, this is really true. The exposure to radiation would have caused irreversible damage to their tissues and the way their bodies function, it is this damage that will kill them, they are not still being irradiated nor emitting radiation themselves, in the same way that if you are severely burnt by a fire you cannot pass on this tissue damage to someone else a day or two later, but the physical trauma of the burns can still kill you. In very simple terms, think of being exposed to high levels of radiaton like this as being similar to the physical trauma of being burnt but on a very small scale in the individual cells of your body.

As others have said, they likely wanted the truck and either did not realise it was carrying radioactive material or did not realise how dangerous it was.

[stromboli]

As it was explained to me in the Navy, start out with a very bad case of the flu, rapidly progressing to bleeding out of your eyeballs and then barfing up your guts. Literally. But that was Tritium. this may be different.