Apparently it’s fine according to this xkcd: https://youtu.be/EFRUL7vKdU8
Doesn’t seem like the same pool if you measure 300 counts/min from their hair afterwards.
A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool
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Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool
#12I have SOOO many questions, and this report answers SOOO few of them.
Like what is a reactor cavity? HN title makes it sound like they fell into the reactor but maybe this is some sort of moat or something? what did they fall into and why?
Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool
#13Does anyone have a sense for how significant of a dose of radiation this person got?
If it was just swimming in it that would be one thing. Ingesting the water could be very bad, depending on what's in it.
Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool
#14It doesn't say worker, just "person." I could understand falling in with some freak accident where you trip. But they ingested the water?!
Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool
#15Apparently it’s fine according to this xkcd: https://youtu.be/EFRUL7vKdU8
That makes it sound like a feature! Might get some rods for my pool to keep her warm.
Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool
#16It doesn't say worker, just "person." I could understand falling in with some freak accident where you trip. But they ingested the water?!
I mean that's something that happens commonly when people fall into things like pools. When you jump into a pool you tend to take a breath before you do so, so you don't suck in water. When you fall into water it's much more common for people to aspirate or swallow water from the surprise.
Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool
#17I have SOOO many questions, and this report answers SOOO few of them.
My question is what happened between when they went in the water and when they got off-site medical treatment. 7 hours seems like a long time. Is there on-site medical that would be doing something during that time?
Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool
#18It doesn't say worker, just "person." I could understand falling in with some freak accident where you trip. But they ingested the water?!
probably likely just a thing that happens when you suddenly fall into a pool of water?
Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool
#19It doesn't say worker, just "person." I could understand falling in with some freak accident where you trip. But they ingested the water?!
Knowing nothing about nuclear reactor design, why would there ever be a dangerous pool that people could walk by that wasn’t covered? Hard to believe it’s like some kind of Bond villain complex with open pools everywhere. This must have been in the course of some kind of servicing that required opening something that normally stays closed?
Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool
#20Does anyone have a sense for how significant of a dose of radiation this person got?
Radiation units are fiendishly tricky to convert between. Here, the only indication is that after decontamination their hair was still reading 300 counts per minute. CPM are instrument-specific and doesn't mean that's the correct number of disintegrations per second, nor easily converted to absorbed dose units, and this is after decontamination, and disregarding the amount of water they ingested.
All that disclaimer aside: a banana produces about 15 Bq (which is s^-1), i.e. 900 cpm.