There is a great deal of cynicism about protection against radiation and much too much worry. I do not worry about drowning on a boat (I don’t drink on boats so my risks are very low statistically) – but I still do the first aid. I see radiations risks in the same way. Most radiation accidents are accidents (!) For fun try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn or search for “Juarez Mexico”. I saw a fire once where the firemen ran away from the fire because there were low level sources (safely boxed) in other parts of the building; they refused to follow friends of mine into the building. I do not like uncalculated risk and if you are the same then the following may be useful (forgive me for stating the obvious): (1) If you help someone who is contaminated then you need to be able to clean up afterwards. If you breathe radioactive particles into your lungs it is hard to treat and you won’t be able to guess your risk from the radiation meter reading BUT even an ad-hoc mouth covering will keep 50 % of particles out. (they have tried to treat contaminated lungs with chelating agents with terrible side effects and no particularly clear benefit) (2) When radioactive dust is released in urban areas it collects in all sorts of strange places (such as gutters) and it gets passed around by clothing and hand-contact. In one incident people passed around powders that glowed blue because they looked nice. In an incident in Mexico the main medical centre was contaminated by dust on patients but with a bit of thought they were able to get around the problem. Don’t believe the computer models because when I last looked they did not describe real incidents; think twice before joining groups of other people. (3) There are lots of different types of radioactive materials. Much of the militarily important work was done with insoluble silicate fall out particles (formed from vaporised rock); it is comparatively easy to brush these off and washing works well. Very fine powers, soluble powders, etc should be washed off even if you cannot see them (especially if you are ever unlucky enough to be near a nuclear device that has gone off in seawater or limestone). (4) When washing someone down you need to avoid conditioners in shampoo or soap – these cause some radio-nuclides to migrate into the skin (just because of the chemistry). If I thought that I could control my risk then I would be willing to help someone get to safety/ clean up etc.