Sometime in November, 1983, Sotelo and Ricardo Hernandez removed a Picker C-3000 teletherapy unit from a hospital warehouse in Juarez , Mexico and loaded it onto their pickup. For one reason or another, the source capsule was perforated and approximately 1,000 pellets (each consisting of 70 mCi of Co-60) fell into the bed of the truck. They then took the teletherapy unit to a local scrapyard and sold it for $10. Afterwards they drove the truck to Aldama Street and parked it. The battery died and the truck remained at that location for the next seven weeks. During this time it was common for people to hang around the truck engaged in conversation. Sotelo’s children even had a tea party inside. Exposure rates near some parts of the truck were quite high, e.g., the exposure rate at 3 feet from the driver’s side of the cab was 50 R/h. At the scrapyard, many of the cobalt pellets that had remained in the source capsule were scattered around when the teletherapy unit was dropped by a magnetic crane. The rest of the pellets stuck to the magnet and became mixed with steel leaving the scrapyard. Most of the latter went to two local foundries. One foundry melted down the steel to produce the pedestal-style table legs used in fast food restaurants. The other produced steel rods (re-bar) for reinforcing concrete. The problem was discovered when a truck carrying the reinforcing rods made a wrong turn at Los Alamos and set off a radiation alarm. Within three days the two foundries had been identified as the source of the contaminated table legs and re-bar, and the scrapyard and contaminated pick-up truck had been located. Estimates place the radiation exposure of at least 4 people in the range of several hundred rad. Two workers at the contaminated scrapyard became sterile, possibly permanently. No one died. The major concern is increased risk of cancer among the exposed individuals.