Lindsay Batty-Smith, radiographer

Some people insert all sorts of unusual objects that go in much further than intended. We are surprised, but you have to stay professional.

We had a lady who swallowed around 200 £1 coins. The x-ray revealed a large metallic area in her pelvis. At first it was thought that she had inserted from below. When questioned she replied: "No, certainly not!" Eventually we discovered she had swallowed them.

We've had violent and nasty things, like screwdrivers in heads. We had a man who wanted to prove to his friends that he was the strongest man in the world. Unfortunately, he'd had rather a lot of the amber liquid and he picked up a house brick and smashed it over his own head. There was a brick-shaped impression in his head. He had a depressed skull fracture.

The public perceive us as button pushers. We go behind a screen because the radiographer should not receive unnecessary exposure to radiation, as much higher doses are potentially dangerous. But when you use the word dangerous everyone gets really alarmed because the reference points we have are from Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

We are monitored for any x-ray dose that would come to us as a result of x-raying someone. We wear film badges, which usually have no reading whatsoever above natural background radiation. Since the year 2000, radiation is very strictly monitored by law, so we don't dish out radiation willy-nilly. We have to justify and record the dosage. There is a very small risk to the patient, but the risk versus benefit has to be explained to the patient. A chest x-ray would be equivalent to three days' natural background radiation.

It is possible to receive the equivalent dose of a chest x-ray each day if you're living in Cornwall or Scotland, as you're living on granite that emits radon gas. If you fly to Spain and back, you also get the approximate equivalent dose of a chest x-ray.