Radiation detected in a Hot Springs Solid Waste Department garbage truck Tuesday morning led to a multiagency operation to determine its source, which was later identified as medical waste, city and county emergency officials said.
"The Federal Bureau of Investigation came out and determined the source of the radiation is coming from medical waste inside the truck," Hot Springs police Cpl. Joey Williams said.
The driver of the truck was examined by LifeNet at the scene and the ambulance crew determined he did not need to seek further medical attention, Williams said, adding that officials were attempting to contact anyone else who may have come in contact with the truck to get medically checked.
The officials did not release the type of radiation being emitted from the truck.
Bo Robertson, the director of Garland County's Department of Emergency Management, said the sanitation truck was turned away from the Saline County Regional Solid Waste Landfill after high levels of radiation were detected in its load.
"The fire department got a call from sanitation around 11:37 this morning that a sanitation truck was returning from a landfill in Saline County that had a high radiation warning. The driver was told by the landfill (in Saline County) to bring it back to Garland County," Williams said.
Williams said the truck's pickup route was in a residential area.
The truck's driver was directed to the Garland County Fairgrounds on Highway 270 west by the Hot Springs Fire Department because it was an isolated area, he said.
Initially, two members of the fire department dressed in protective hazardous materials suits detected a "high radiation level" in the truck, he said. The fire department's equipment identified the source of the radiation as possibly industrial radioactive material, but the FBI determined it was, in fact, medical waste, shortly after they arrived, Williams said.
"We don't believe there's any danger to the public or anything but we're going to do our due diligence in testing it," he said earlier in the day.
"We brought it out here to (have) a safe place to check it," Williams said.
Local on 12/18/2019