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Re the search for a missing device with Am-241 inside, I tried to look up an incident from mid-naughts I vaguely remember, where a group of disgruntled(?) cleaners(?) smashed up smoke detectors and released the Americium (I don't know whether they ended up smashing it into dust or "just" into macroscopic pieces). Sadly, I couldn't find any obvious reference (the easily accessible reports on radiation incidents in Poland go back to 2007, and the ones up to 2010 do not mention any smoke detector incident that required onsite investigation).

I've found though a curious sounding "contamination of a passenger (rail?)car with I-131" in the 2007 report and can't find anything more about it. I'm somewhat puzzled by the sequence of events that could cause that: if someone's getting I-131 orally they stay in the hospital well past the point when it's absorbed (in fact until the activity has dropped down significantly), so I wouldn't expect that to result from e.g. someone vomiting. If that didn't come from bodily fluid, then why would someone be transporting I-131 via passenger rail, in a form that can be easily dispersed?

@robryk You might be thinking of the radioactive Boy Scout. I think one of his sources was smoke detectors.

@psn

No, I mean something that happened in Poland and it involved people being totally unaware of what they're doing. Sadly the materials from the probably-relevant radiological inspectors' conference aren't available online either.

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