The Goiana Accident

That's the one about the people who were collecting scrap and it was radioactive if I remember right or was this a different one

Yes, it was Caesium 132 that was left in a closed hospital, presumably from some type of X-ray device (?). They just left it behind and the building wasn’t even properly boarded up. The radioactive material was stored in a big container made out of lead, which contained the radioactive material safely enough, but two guys who were hunting for valuable items knew that they could sell the lead for a good price, so they took it to a scrap yard in their village.

The villagers were delighted by the strong glow of the powder that was inside the container, and they used it for various things during several days, until the wife of the scrap yard owner took it to a hospital because she started feeling sick and suspected it was because of it. At this point, quite a few people were already badly affected, and the radiation had been distributed all over the city.

I haven’t watched all of it, but it’s a well made series, I recommend it.

@Kurterino

I believe in was caesium-137 (specifically in the form of a highly soluble caesium chloride salt powder), not Caesium-132.

Caesium-137 in the hospital setting is commonly used in all facets of nuclear medicine from brachytherapy cancer treatments to instrument calibration and quality control. It is also used in other industries as the beta decay is quite stable, emitting a high-energy gamma photon at 0.662 MeV (662 keV)  and has a half-life of approx. 30 years, so it takes about 10 half-lives, or 300 years to be harmless leaving about  0.1% of it's original energy .

Yes, I was in nuclear medicine and used Caesium-137 daily.