Thread: Medical tests trigger problems at the border

I found this interesting and something I haven't heard about:

Medical tests trigger problems at the border

By Paula Evans Neuman, The News-Herald

PUBLISHED: March 5, 2008

WYANDOTTE — William Duran, 50, has new respect for U.S. border security these days, and some advice to pass along to other travelers, too.

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His story began Feb. 21, when he went to the Brownstown Township office of Dearborn Cardiology for medical tests.

Things went well, and that evening, he and his wife, Barbara, 49, decided to go to one his favorite dinner spots — the Tunnel Bar-B-Q restaurant in Windsor, Ontario.

They drove from their Wyandotte home to Detroit and through the tunnel between Detroit and Windsor at about 5:30 p.m. without incident.

"We had a nice dinner," Duran said.

It was when they were headed home and nearly at the U.S. customs booth that things went scarily awry.

"We got up to being the third vehicle back coming out of the tunnel when all of the gates came down," Duran said. "My wife and I talked to each other and, at first, we thought it was shift change.

"But we looked at the clock on my truck and it wasn't on an hour or half hour, so it didn't make sense that it was a shift change.

"We then noticed all of the customs guys coming back to each vehicle with some kind of handheld detector and going around the vehicles.

"We kind of joked and said, 'We're going to see something going on here.' We thought it was kind of interesting — until they got to my truck."

An official pointed at Duran's pickup and shouted: "This is the vehicle. This is the vehicle."

Duran thought maybe someone had put something in the back of his truck while he and his wife were at dinner.

"They moved all the other vehicles through the gates, and we were the lone vehicle, which made us feel worse," Duran said.

"They all came around our vehicle. We were somewhat surrounded. One guy was on the radio saying they had shut down the bridge and tunnel. He kept saying, 'We have the vehicle. We have the vehicle.'"

The officials took the couple's passports and kept them, and asked a telling question.

"They asked, 'Did anyone in the vehicle have a medical test?'" Duran said. "I said, 'I had some tests done today.'"

He told the officials he'd had a heart stress test.

Keeping the truck surrounded at all times, the officials then had the Durans drive it through another set of sensing equipment.

"From their reaction, we set that detector off," he said. "Then they had us take our vehicle to the impound-teardown area. I was nervous that they were going to tear down my truck."

He and his wife were escorted into a building.

"I jokingly call it the holding cell," Duran said. "The guy came in with a handheld detector and set it down on a counter six or eight feet away, and it went off. My wife and I both heard it.

"He said, 'You didn't have a PET (positron emission tomography) scan today, did you?' and I said no. He said, 'Good. It wasn't in the database.' I said, 'What database?'"

No one answered the question.

The border officials questioned the Durans, asking them where they'd been and things of that nature.

"The room was full of people," Duran said. "They watched us at all times."

He is a former Wyandotte police commissioner and member of the city's police auxiliary force, as is his wife, who also worked for the FBI as a communications specialist for about five years.

"We knew to keep our hands in plain view and act calm because of our experience," Duran said.

By then, he had figured out that the drugs injected into his body for his heart stress test were radioactive, although no one told him that when he had the test.

"I offered to pull up my shirt and show them the mark from the IV, and they said no," Duran said. "They didn't want us messing around. They were at computers and mumbling among themselves.

"They asked me if I had any medical paperwork with me a couple of times. I said no. We just went to dinner. I asked why we didn't set it off going into Canada, and he said they don't check for that.

"I offered to strip so they could check and make sure I didn't have anything on me, and they said no. I just wanted to go home.

"I said to the guy that had the handheld detector, 'I'm sorry. If I had known this, I'd have gone to dinner the next day.'

"He said, 'No. It might take 30 days before you don't set it off.'"

After a scary hour or so, the Durans were given back their passports and released.

"It seemed really long," he said.

He returned to the doctor's office the next day, and now a sign is in place informing patients of what could happen if they travel after certain tests.

Duran is fine now, and has a good story to tell.

He wants to make sure other people — and medical officials — know that some medical procedures using radioactive tracer chemicals can make border crossings or trips through airports a little dicey.

He wonders how his situation might have turned out for someone without his law enforcement background — someone who became agitated or obviously anxious.

"I'm assuming they could hold you for a whole lot longer," Duran said.

http://www.thenewsherald.com/stories/03 ... 5011.shtml

I have a friend who had one of those nuclear heart tests done. After the tests, the medical people gave her a card to carry saying that she had recently been injected with nuclear chemicals for medical tests, just in case she sat off an alarm.

They thought he might be carring a dirty bomb.

Dixie

They thought he might be carring a dirty bomb.

Dixie

So why would they not think that someone running across the border would not have a dirty bomb?