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A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

nrc.gov

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Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#51

Post by numpad0 »

piinbinary wrote: post #3

Does anyone have a sense for how significant of a dose of radiation this person got?

"count" is that classical Geiger click, so 300 per minute is constant 5/sec gggggggg going on, which sounds bad but we don't know. They're boolean and also equipment dependent.

As others had said, more alarming part is that they ingested the water, which could go like defected Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. But it could also be like man eating few bananas seasoned with expired Himalayan salt. The report just doesn't say how much of what was ingested.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#52

Post by lelandbatey »

andy99 wrote: post #32
donatj wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's generally speaking, not that dangerous. Water is very good at blocking radiation. That's part of the reason why the pool is filled with it to begin with.

I personally consider an area dangerous if I need to undergo radiation decontamination after entering it, continue emitting radiation after decontamination, and need to seek medical attention. Maybe the nuclear regulatory bodies have differen definitions?

I think you're softly implying things are more dangerous than they actually are, possibly due to not understanding just how insanely risk averse the nuclear industry is in the US. You could jog around a reactor chamber every morning and under a "normal person's" risk tolerance, you would never, ever be exposed to any danger. That worker who fell in the reactor pool seems like they got a radiation exposure equal to approximately a dozen chest x-rays (it's ambiguous though because they don't specify what tool was yeilding 300 counts per minute, nor do they give the total mSv).

The NRC would make you attend training and get decontaminated if you had to cross a street if they operated the roads.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#53

Post by IlikeKitties »

tt_dev wrote: post #10

This is bad but cavity water radiation is usually very weak. Ingestion could be bad but its not like he swallowed a uranium isotope which would be catastrophic.

The Uranium Isotopes would also not be that terrible. It's the fission products that get you.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#54

Post by viraptor »

pixl97 wrote: post #16
sigmar wrote: post #14

It 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.

Depending on a velocity, it also doesn't matter if you took a breath or not. Fall in quickly enough and at just the right angle (you can even do that from a fast water slide) and the water will be forced through your nose into lungs/stomach. (Unless you hold it closed)

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#55

Post by [deleted] »

donatj wrote: post #24
andy99 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because it's generally speaking, not that dangerous. Water is very good at blocking radiation. That's part of the reason why the pool is filled with it to begin with.

[deleted]

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#56

Post by forthac »

andy99 wrote: post #19
sigmar wrote: post #14

It 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?

They typically have a railing around them. The circumstances of this incident are unknown beyond a small set of details. The report indicates that the person who fell was wearing a life vest, it is likely they were doing work around the pool beyond the normal safety barriers.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#58

Post by mlindner »

tt_dev wrote: post #10

This is bad but cavity water radiation is usually very weak. Ingestion could be bad but its not like he swallowed a uranium isotope which would be catastrophic.

I wouldn't even call it bad. Reactor pools have basically zero radiation at the surface. The water is constantly filtered and kept very pure to remove contaminants that can be activated by neutrons.

Even drinking it I would think would be completely fine. The water itself doesn't get activated.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#59

Post by ang_cire »

fwlr wrote: post #38

Scrolling up and down the list, just how onerous is this reporting regulation? It seems almost cartoonishly excessive, even for critical safety applications.

Literally no amount of incident reporting is excessive when it comes to nuclear power. Not just because of the safety of the plant itself, but because so much is reliant on it.

It's important to identify even small defects or incidents so that patterns can be noticed before they turn into larger issues. You see the same breaker tripping at 3x the rate of other ones, and even though maybe nothing was damaged you now know there's something to investigate.

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