Story of a Polonium Spill

          When I read the Headlines in Times of India this morning, “Plot thickens, Sunanda Murdered, say cops” my mind went back to my early days in AEET (or Atomic Energy Establishment, Trombay, as BARC was then known by its maiden name). For, the news item clearly said that the police suspected Sunanda Pushkar to be killed and in a rare case of Polonium poisoning, the only two known cases in recent history being that of the Soviet spy, Alexander Litvienko, who was given the lethal dose mixed with his tea and the Palestanian leader, Yasser Arafat, whose personal effects were found showing high levels of radioactivity.  First of all, I wondered, how could the murderer, whoever it was, could ever lay his hands on even a few micrograms of Polonium, as it was a highly ‘classified’ material accessible to only a privileged few in research laboratories, not only because it is a deadly poison worse than cyanides, but also, because it is highly radioactive. Hence, it would be the last choice of a potential murderer as it would leave behind an unmistakable trail of high ‘activity’ leading easily to the culprit. Even in a nuclear research lab like ours, we did not have easy access to Polonium; for calibrating our charged particle detectors, we were told to use Americium-241 or Uranium-235 as  the alpha particle source because they were considered to be more “safe” than the deadly Polonium.  

         Suddenly, old memories surfaced in my mind of an old incident of a Polonium spill that had occurred in our lab, way back in 1965, when I was working in the BF-3 Counters section, then situated in the new TIFR building at Colaba.  I had hardly reached the office that morning and was walking towards my lab, when I was suddenly accosted on the way by an unusually irate, Dr. Ramanna, to whom I was reporting in those days. He seemed to be very much upset about something and in a very unusual angry mood.  “Just what is going on here, I say?” he thundered on seeing me. For a moment, I was too stunned to react; for, I had absolutely no idea of what I had done to deserve such a pleasant welcome by the boss. “What happened, Sir?” I ventured at last albeit a bit nervously. “You are asking me! Go up there and see for yourself --- your whole area has been cordoned off as a HIGH RADIATION zone!  If there’s been any mishap in the lab involving radioactive material, why wasn’t I informed about it?” said Dr. Ramanna as we both entered the lab. It was true; the whole area did appear as if it was ransacked by someone with tools and other things scattered helter-skelter all over the place. Standing upright everywhere were those typical, red barrier-posts with the yellow, striped streamers hanging in-between them and the usual, red ‘skull and crossed bones’ signs displaying the warning message: ‘DANGER! KEEP OFF’. The entire scene really looked so ghastly and scaring that, no wonder, Dr. Ramanna was so shocked and upset.

“Sorry, Sir.  I really don’t know anything about this, I swear!” I said rather timidly “When we left this place last evening, everything seemed so normal and okay. Something must have happened later on.  Oh, here comes Dande! If you like, you can ask him, Sir.” By then, my colleague, Mr. Dande had also arrived and he confirmed that the place was indeed immaculately “clean and clear” the previous day and he too had no idea as to what could have happened during the night that would explain the obvious, radioactive contamination in the area. “Well, then go to the Health Physicists and ask them; they will know for sure.” so said our still exasperated, but by now a bit calmed-down boss.  

            It was only after we had a talk with Mr. Jumboonathan, the local Health Physicist at TIFR, that we came to know of what had actually happened the previous night. Well, there was this fair, tall and handsome Punjabi boy who had joined the Radiochemistry Lab. only about a year back. He was one Dev Anand (obviously not his real name, but, a close look-alike of the celebrity) a jolly,  nice, amiable fellow constantly wearing a friendly smile on his face, who would invariably stop to greet and shake hands with you every time you crossed his path. In his work, he was sincere and hard-working, often working late into the night. No one really knew the nature of his work, but apparently, he was handling Polonium, because on the previous night he had accidentally tripped a vial containing the Polonium solution on his work-table. Naturally, he had panicked at first, but he had tried to salvage the situation by immediately trying to put the spilt solution back into its container, as best as he could. He had then proceeded to clean the table by scrubbing it thoroughly with a piece of cloth and some tissue papers, all of which he had carefully put in a large plastic bag for proper later disposal and sealed it neatly with a ‘sticky’ tape. Having thus cleaned the place to his utmost satisfaction, he had washed his hands for some five minutes with a detergent soap and water. Then, he looked at his watch and rushed towards the canteen lest he miss his dinner before it closed for the day.  After the food, he remembered that he had to return the multi-meter, which he had earlier borrowed from Mr. Dande. So, he went to his lab to fetch the meter and went to our room to carefully place it back in our tools cupboard in exactly the same place from where had taken it before. Then, later on, while he was just recollecting in his mind all the ‘horrible’ events of the day, it just occurred to him that although he did wash both his hands before very thoroughly, he should check them just once in the ‘Hands’ Monitor to confirm that they had no residual “activity” left on them. However, the moment he inserted both his palms into the Monitor, to his horror it just went beserk, chattering away like a mini-machine gun telling him that he was “hot” like a radium source!

           Naturally panicked and scared stiff, he ran next door to the Health Physicist who pulled him up at first for not reporting to him immediately after the event and then after a while, coolly asked him to take him around the building to all those places he had visited after the spill. With his portable monitor, he had then meticulously scanned all over the area and collected the various items he had handled. For, like King Midas, Mr. Anand had now been blessed with a magic touch that turned everything he touched into a radioactive source. Thus, he had found that some ‘used’ dishes, plates and glasses in the canteen, a water faucet in the washing room, some small screwdrivers and a pair of pliers, the door handle of the tools-cupboard and our multi-meter had all become radioactive and now, they were all lying majestically on the table-top below a sheet of polyethylene, awaiting their turn for getting ‘decontaminated’. Next, Mr. Anand himself was ‘quarantined’ and kept under observation for about a week in a special room in the J.J. Hospital. Luckily for him, Anand had not shown any signs of radiation effects either on his body or in his general health.

            We didn’t hear much about Anand after the above episode. He had now been transferred to Trombay and was working in the Technical Physics Division at the South Site.  Meanwhile, I had also shifted to Trombay and joined the Fission Physics Section in the Apsara Reactor building. Then, one day I saw Mr. Anand having lunch in the canteen with his colleagues. Suddenly in the middle of his lunch a person came running to him and told him something that made him nearly jump in his seat and then immediately, without even finishing his lunch,  he got up and hurriedly left the place with the errand boy in tow and a very worried look on his face. On making concerned inquiries I learnt from his friends, that Mr. Anand was apparently carrying out some experiment before coming for lunch; he was heating some solution on the gas burner, about which he had cleanly forgotten until the man came running to inform him of a small explosion that had just taken place in his lab. Luckily, the fire had been extinguished by someone before much damage was done to the equipment or property. It seems there were some other hazardous chemicals too lying there on the table and it was just fortunate that some passer-by had spotted the fire in time and raised an alarm, or else the results would have been even more disastrous. 

            On hearing about the near-fatal accident, Dr. Phadke, who was Anand’s boss sitting in the Old Yacht Club at Colaba, rushed down to Trombay to make discreet enquiries, first hand.  All along the way to Trombay, Dr. Phadke was thinking about the young, budding scientist from Training School who, he had thought, showed such great promise. However, the young man though he appeared to be so conscientious, sincere and hard-working, had shown an uncanny knack of getting into trouble. Was he really accident prone or just plain clumsy or foolhardy and reckless in his work?  How does one explain this syndrome -- was it due to too much stress, over-anxiety or was it just a bad case of an old habit of doing things carelessly and hurriedly? He was too baffled to find a plausible answer to his own question. When he reached Trombay, however, he lost his cool the moment he saw Mr. Anand and just couldn’t help bursting out: “What’s this, young man?” he said. “ I find you’re always in some kind of soup or other! Enough is enough. These accidents are taking place once too often. Only three months back, you had spread Polonium all over the town and now this! I thought you had learnt your lesson and would be more careful henceforth. But, no, every other day you come up with yet another accident more serious than the previous one. Just imagine, you could have blown up this whole place today!” Poor Mr. Anand just stood there silently, hanging his head down in shame and remorse as the tears welled up in his eyes.  

            Next day, the newspapers carried on the front page the shocking story of a young, thirty year old, Indian scientist who had ended his precious life by jumping down from the third floor balcony. He was staying as a paying guest with an aged Parsee couple who had reported the matter to the police and it seems, the hapless youth, who was married only recently, was leaving behind his young bride of twenty one years. When Dr. Homi Bhabha learnt about the sad news, he postponed his flight to Geneva where he was scheduled to attend an IAEA meeting the next day. When he met Dr. Phadke later that day, he chided him for having scolded Anand over the mishap; while it was right to have cautioned him and ask him to be more responsible henceforth, it was the ‘timing’ of the reprimand that was all wrong. He could have just waited a few days for things to cool down a bit before giving him a piece of mind and elderly advice. “From what you’ve just told me about this young fellow, it appears he was serious, devoted and conscientious about his work and so, in all probability, he was already feeling somewhat guilty and sorry for what had happened. In such a state of mind and extreme dejection, what he needed most from his group leader was perhaps a word reassurance and encouragement. When your man has success you’re ready to share the credits. If one can’t rise to the occasion at such times of dire need for support and show one’s qualities of leadership, then when will one ever do it? ”

            PS:  I must add here that, only two days later, on 24^th January, 1966, Dr. Homi Bhabha met his own tragic end in a plane crash on Mont. Blanc in the French Alps and India lost forever her most illustrious scientist and a great leader of men.