37. X-Ray Shoe Fitters Bathed Everybody in the Vicinity With Dangerous Radiation
A typical X-Ray Shoe Fitter viewing lasted about 20 seconds, during which the machine delivered about half the radiation of a chest CT scan. Many customers tried on more than one pair of shoes, and thus ended up getting exposed to additional X-ray doses with each pair. Even people sitting in the waiting room got exposed to radiation.
Many shoe stores did not think that saving money by skimping on machine maintenance was a bad idea. As a result, many X-Ray Shoe Fitters emitted significantly more radiation. Some devices blasted out as much as 300 times more radiation than the maximum safe limit. Most exposed were the shoe salespeople: they got hit with stray radiation dozens of times a day, each and every day they went to work.