Radioactive spill from vehicle shuts down part of highway in Monroe County, deputies say

Radioactive materials spilled out of a delivery vehicle and caused a highway road closure in Monroe County Monday morning, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies responded to a vehicle accident around 7 a.m. near Debra Drive and Highway 74 and were told the vehicle was delivering medical materials to a Macon hospital, according to public information officer Anna Greene Watkins.

Watkins described it as “medical imaging dye.”

“The supplies were identified as Technetium 99M, that is a radioactive isotope that is used in medical imaging,” the sheriff’s office said on Facebook. “It does have a (60-hour) half-life before radiation is eliminated.”

This means it could take 60 hours until the material’s radioactive atoms are reduced enough to stop radiation, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Georgia Emergency Management Agency and Environmental Protection Division responded to the scene and reported the material was “non-hazardous to anyone in the area,” the sheriff’s office said. A radiation clean-up crew was then dispatched to the scene.

One lane on Highway 74 was barricaded off until the area was cleaned up.

Nobody was injured in the incident, Watkins confirmed.