ORIGINAL: Nemo121
Yeah all they need to do is get a sample and run a test. It isn't too complicated nowadays. To be fair though the doctor was almost certainly correct. Gamma radiation is the last of the moderately common types I'd want to be exposed to. The problem is that it is highly mutagenic and penetrates clothing and tissues and is well known to screw with DNA - meaning not only is he more likely to get cancer but it is more likely to be of the inner viscera and thus more likely to result in death. As for as his spermatozoa goes they are probably are effected but the degree of damage is what really matters.
Apart from the usual " you put WHAT WHERE?" injuries you always get one of the really impressive ones I saw was a guy who got a drop of acid (forget what type it was now but it is used to etch silicon chips in the computer industry and goes something like "fluoridic acid" sic) on his hand while working in an Intel factory. Turns out that this acid doesn't burn your skin but actually just gets absorbed and then does two things:
1. Has an exothermic reaction with the water in your body and
2. makes for any nearby bone and leaches the calcium etc out of it creating a poisonous second stage.
The guy looked fine coming in, he was Polish and a tough as nails, with his hand only a slight bit tender but we didn't know anything about the acid so I had to go on the net and find info on it. Imagine my surprise when they stated that amputation of the arm or leg could be required if you got a large enough splash of it - not so much because of the actual destruction of tissue but because the liberation of all that calcium messed up your electrolyte balance and you ended up getting hypercalcaemia, hyperphospataemia etc and then getting a fatal cardiac arrhythmia.
Fortunately things went OK and the guy not only lived but kept his hand. What was impressive though was how well prepared Intel was - one of their line managers came in with an information pack on the acid, likely complications etc etc. Most impressive stuff.
Maybe hydrofluoric acid... standard warning on the bottle (at least in the past) was: "Hold affected area under running water for 24 hours". [X(]
i know of someone who got a drop of it on his finger - and had nerve damage and couldn't feel anything in the finger for several years. The stuff is deadly - it will eat through glass and is used in etching, and thus it may be the one you are talking about... then again, it just might be a close "cousin".
One nasty chemical accident i saw was from a housemate years ago: she was working in a chemistry class and went on break. When she came back, she put on her goggles, and discovered that the class "brain" had accidentally splashed Sulphuric Acid (iirc) on them. Cooly, the was trying to get to the chemical spill shower when the class "brain" announced what had happened, and new the "correct" solution, and splashed concentrated Potassium Hydroxide into her face. Alas, human flesh is somewhat resistant to acid, but is readily attacked by strong base solutions, and this solution was far worse than the original problem (that he had originally caused).
Fortunately, the KOH did not get into her eyes, and got the chemical shower pretty quick, but she carried some nasty scars around her eyes. i suspect unless she got plastic surgery, she would have them for the rest of her life.
