If you are outside in an area when a radiation emergency happens, you could be contaminated with radioactive material. Radioactive material can fall from the air and land on people, buildings, roads, cars, and other objects. This is called contamination. It is important to get radioactive contamination off your body as soon as you can to lower your risk of harm. Removing contamination is called decontamination. Other videos focused on protective actions for radiation emergencies can be found here: http://emergency.cdc.gov/radiation/protectiveactions.asp Comments on this video are allowed in accordance with our comment policy: http://www.cdc.gov/SocialMedia/Tools/CommentPolicy.html This video can also be viewed at http://www.cdc.gov/wcms/videos/low-res/NCEH/2015/self-decontamination_922292.mp4