Question: Have you ever been injured by radioactive substances?

Alexander Cunningham answered on 14 Mar 2022:

I’m happy to report I’ve never been injured by them! In fact, I’ve never come close to being injured by them – radioactive substances are dealt with extremely carefully so the nuclear industry is perfectly safe to work in.

Radioactive substances emit radiation i.e. fire off little invisible particles or rays which can be harmful when lots of them hit humans. So, anything radioactive which is emitting dangerous amounts of radiation is put in sealed concrete or metal containers to block almost all of the radiation from it.

Also, anyone who works in areas with radioactive substances will be given a monitor (called a dosimeter) to track how much radiation their body has been hit with (i.e. the dose of radiation). Radiation is perfectly safe in small amounts, in fact humans all get hit by small amounts of radiation all the time e.g. from certain foods, rocks, naturally occurring radon gas, cosmic rays from space…. You only need to worry if the radiation amounts are getting high, which certainly doesn’t happen in everyday life!

For a worker in the nuclear industry, the government has laws on the maximum radiation dose allowed in a year – staying below this means the person won’t get any negative effects from the radiation. If a worker is getting near the maximum dose then they will be moved onto jobs that don’t involve being near radioactive substances.

Thanks and hope this answers your question!