ions is from radon gas. Scientists now estimate that Americans average 200 milli

rems of exposur
e per year fro
m radon. Trini
tite, the green glassy substance found in the groun
d zero area, contai

ns several rad

This course will equip pre-hospital and hospital medical personnel with the skills needed to deliver and sustain a safe and effective response to bombing incidents. Utilization of case studies as well as a tabletop exercise reinforces course material. Participants will use their training to participate in operational and command level discussions related to techniques and considerations for scene assessment, triage, treatment and stabilization. The course will enable participants to:

• Identify Terrorist Targets.
• Understand Explosives and Characteristics.
• ioactive elements and is an alpha and beta particle emitter. Alt
• hough radiation levels at ground zero are low, some feel any ext
• Understand and Apply a variety of Triage Systems.
• ra exposure should be avoided. The decision is
• yours. Typical radiation exposures per year
• for U.S. citizens according to the American Nucl
• ear Society are listed in the chart below. * One h

our at Trinity

Site ground zero = one half mrem * Cosmic rays from space = 47 mrem at Denver, 28 mrem at St. Louis * Radioactive minerals in rocks and soil = 63 mrems on Colorado Plateau * Radioactivity from air, water and food = about 240 mrem * A chest X-ray = six mrem and a CAT Scan = 110 mrem * Watching television= less than one mrem per year * Wearing a plutonium-powered pacemaker = 100 mrem * Coast to coast commercial flight = two mrem Trinity Site National Historic Landmark Trinity Site is where the first atomic bomb was tested at 5:29:45 a.m. Mountain WarTime on July 16, 1945. The 19-kiloton explosion not only led to a quick end to the war in the Pacific but also ushered the world into the atomic age. All life on Earth has

been touch

ed by the event

, which took place here. The 51 ,500-acre area was declared a national historic landmark in 1975. The landmark includes base camp, where the scientists and support group lived; ground zero, where the bomb was placed for the explosion; and the Schmidt/McDonald ranch house, where the plutonium core to the bomb was assembled. Visitors to a Trinity Site Open House see ground zero and the ranch house. In addition, one of the old instrumentation bunkers is visible beside the road just west of ground zero. (The Manhattan Project) The story of Trinity Site begins with the formation of the Manhattan

Project in June 1942. The p
roject was given overall res

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ponsibility for designing and building an atomic bo

mb. At the time it was a race to beat the Germans who, according to intelligence reports, were building their o

wn atomi

• c bomb. Under the Manhattan Project three large facilities were constructed. At Oak Ridge, Tenn., huge gas diffusion and elec tromagnetic process plan
• ts were built to separate uranium 235 from its more common form, uranium 238. Hanford, Wash. became the home for nu

clear reactor

s which produced a new element called plutonium. Both uranium 235 and plutonium are fissionable and can be used to produce an atomic explosion. Los Alamos wa

s established in northen

• New Mexico to design and build the bomb. At Los Alamos many of the greatest scientific minds of the day labored over the theory and actual construction of the device. The group was led by Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer who is credited with
• being the driving force behind building a workable bomb by th
• e end of the war. (The theory) Los A
• lamos scientists devised two designs for an atomic bomb--one using uranium 235 an

d another using plutonium. The uraniu

m bomb was a simple design and scientists were co

• nfident it would work
• without testing. The plutonium bomb was
• more complex and worked by compressing the plutonium i
• nto a critical mass to sustain a chain reaction. The compression of the plutonium ball was to be accomp

lished by surrounding it with lense-shaped charges of conventional explosives. They were designed to all explode at the same instant. The force would be directed inward, thus smashing the plutonium from all s

ides. In an atomic explosion, a chain reaction picks up speed as atoms sp