The really dumb thing - it was all preventable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident#Hospital_abandonment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A

The really dumb thing - it was all preventable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident#Hospital_abandonment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident#Hospital... "On September 11, 1986, the Court of Goiás stated it had knowledge of the abandoned radioactive material in the building. Four months before the theft, on May 4, 1987, Saura Taniguti, then director of Ipasgo, the institute of insurance for civil servants, used police force to prevent one of the owners of IGR, Carlos Figueiredo Bezerril, from removing the objects that were left behind. Figueiredo then warned the president of Ipasgo, Lício Teixeira Borges, that he should take responsibility "for what would happen with the caesium bomb" Apparently - the court posted a guard at the site, but it wouldn't allow the removal of any of the contents of the facility. The owners even "wrote several letters to the National Nuclear Energy Commission, warning them about the danger of keeping a teletherapy unit at an abandoned site". Then guess who got screwed - the very owners who tried and tried to warn about this deadly problem! From wikipedia: "In light of the deaths caused, the three doctors who had owned and run IGR were charged with criminal negligence. Because the accidents occurred before the promulgation of the Federal Constitution of 1988 and because the substance was acquired by the clinic and not by the individual owners, the court could not declare the owners of IGR liable. One of the medical doctors owning IGR and the clinic's physicist were ordered to pay R$100,000 for the derelict condition of the building." While sure, they weren't found liable - that was probably small consolation.