A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

Palisades MI reactor. Currently shut down and de-fueled but a restart of this reactor is apparently underway, with new fuel assemblies being delivered.[1]

Worker was wearing a life vest.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palisades_Nuclear_Generating_S...

[2] https://www.mlive.com/news/2025/10/michigan-nuclear-plant-wo...

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 Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board has a great YouTube channel where they carefully analyze similar accidents.

https://www.youtube.com/@USCSB/videos

Not necessarily nuclear (since chemical and industrial accidents are much, muhc more likely), but highly recommended if you're interested in such incidents and their causes.

300 CPM in hair after decontamination is a massive red flag. If this is from systemic circulation, could be GBq-level total body activity.

The non-emergency classification is bureaucratic nonsense. This is an internal contamination event with unknown but potentially severe consequences.

I’ve heard of people falling into the spent fuel pool but never the reactor pool. Usually there are strict FME barriers in place and one cannot even look over into the pool without violating the FME. I wonder what led to the event? Definitely an OSHA recordable!

> Non Emergency

I guess in a nuclear reactor there is a lingual shift and the word emergency cant be used for just any old 911 call.

Like how Australians apparently call a jellyfish bite "uncomfortable"

Why didn't they shave off the hair and measure again before sending off to medical? They have the opportunity to report lower numbers, and would enable identifying non-hair-adsorbed radiatioactive matter on the subject. It sounds so easy and actionable it boggles the mind that it's not part of the protocol.

Relevant from Randall Munroe https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/

> What if I took a swim in a typical spent nuclear fuel pool? Would I need to dive to actually experience a fatal amount of radiation? How long could I stay safely at the surface?

> Assuming you’re a reasonably good swimmer, you could probably survive treading water anywhere from 10 to 40 hours. At that point, you would black out from fatigue and drown. This is also true for a pool without nuclear fuel in the bottom.

I greatly appreciate the nuclear industry. Nuclear field engineering was my first "real" job out of college and they really committ to safety. Transparency in this industry is inspiring because everyone involved knows that one screw up and that's the end of the US nuclear industry. Good luck getting oil and gas to be accountable and as transparent about incidents. I carry the culture into the rest of my work and appreciate being involved. Wish events like this didn't happen but it is not of significant danger and I find it great that they communicate even "smaller" issues.

“worker fell off roof installing solar panels” — just getting ahead of the ‘anti-nuclear’ folks on here. Energy installations all come with risks, albeit nuclear long tail accidents are mutli-generational and externalised to people not involved in managing the risk

I have SOOO many questions, and this report answers SOOO few of them.

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

It doesn't say worker, just "person." I could understand falling in with some freak accident where you trip. But they ingested the water?!

Is he going to die no matter what or is this survivable?

Palisades was closed down 2022, but just reopened recently at August 27, 2025.

Hair contaminated

Hopefully the worker is okay. I have to agree that the non-emergency classification seems odd. This should warrant a proper investigation and steps to avoid this in the future.

I thought you could safely swim in that water so long as you stay a few meters clear of the rods? water being a good absorber of radiation and all. Is this just a precautionary reaction?

Your periodic reminder that coal is deadlier than nuclear.

https://cns.utexas.edu/news/research/coal-power-killed-half-...

These are quite a few reports for one day for a technology we purportedly have under full control, nothing to worry.

Does the operator go to court for OH&S breaches?

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

Interesting page overall. Didn't realize reactors get scrammed that often.

For comparison: https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/around-us/calculator

In other news, a kitten named millicurie did a really adorable thing.

The only remarkable fact here is that the regulatory structure is strong enough that we commoners are entitled to hear about it. That's a Very Good Thing, and one I wish we enjoyed apropos, say, the corporate veil (looking at you, Chevron, Exxon, Shell, Aramco, Sinopec, Amazon, Oracle, AIPAC, United, The Trump Organization, X Corp, Paramount, Skydance, eMed Population Health, Inc., et. al.).

But the story here is a guy fell into some water, and is following SOP (which is also a Very Good Thing).

Please don't feed the clickbait.

The rest of the event reports are also very active. Reactor sites are fun places to work.

If my childhood taught me anything, it’s that there’s about to be an awesome superhero.

Toxic Avenger remake.

No more horseplay around the reactor!

I can't help but be reminded of relevant xkcd^{TM} https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/

Man in Michigan potentially exposed to radiation levels equivalent to undergoing 4 x-rays at the doctors office.

Meanwhile, in Texas, 1.5 people die every day working in Oil and Gas extraction.

A few people die every year installing or falling off of wind turbines.

But by all means, let's make this a news story instead and keep making nuclear sound scary. I’m sure the person who posted this to HN with this clickbait title has zero political beliefs.

Mandatory xkcd: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/

Apparently it’s fine according to this xkcd: https://youtu.be/EFRUL7vKdU8

Relevant xkcd content: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/

and so hulk was born

Not bad, not terrible.

Dude about to have superpowers and go after the government

relevant xkcd not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreev_Bay_nuclear_accident#A...

Obligatory XKCD: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/

(Not exactly same but close)

Obligatory xkcd (ish)

https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/

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Pusat bantuan shopee

I heard a story from colleagues when working at a foundry of a guy falling into a vessel that had previously held molten metal. It was empty but still red hot inside. He fell front a small cavity on the top when doing some clean up work. They heard him scream for about a minute.

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