SUMMARY

After a radiation dispersion device (RDD) event, potentially there will be many internally and externally contaminated victims. These victims may require immediate medical assistance before any external radioactive contamination can be removed. In addition, any internally ingested/inhaled radionuclides cannot be removed before receiving medical assistance. For this situation, the amount of dose received by a health care provider due to the internal and external contamination of the victim is of concern as is the dose to the patient awaiting decontamination. For given levels of radioactive contamination, the health care provider needs to know how long they can provide the victim with medical attention before receiving a high dose or radiation. To determine reference doses for patients and health care professionals, Monte Carlo simulations using sets of anthropomorphic models of the human body will be employed. In addition to this study, emergency responders generally will only have access to detectors intended to be used to measure external contamination, but out of necessity must use them to estimate the internal contamination level of the RDD victims. The most efficient and accurate way to simulate the response of such instruments using Monte Carlo methods is also investigated in this work. The culmination of this work will provide the health care industry with reference radiation dose rates that can be used to determine procedures following an RDD event.