A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool
- Animats - 33371 sekunder sedanPalisades 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...
- tt_dev - 34942 sekunder sedanThis 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.
- unglaublich - 12082 sekunder sedanThe 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.
- arthurcolle - 28166 sekunder sedan300 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.
- slicktux - 32218 sekunder sedanI’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!
- hshdhdhehd - 35071 sekunder sedan> 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"
- DoctorOetker - 26751 sekunder sedanWhy 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.
- sebmellen - 18237 sekunder sedanRelevant 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.
- robviren - 31354 sekunder sedanI 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.
- dudidn - 27982 sekunder sedan“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
- Hobadee - 35165 sekunder sedanI have SOOO many questions, and this report answers SOOO few of them.
- fwlr - 33789 sekunder sedanScrolling up and down the list, just how onerous is this reporting regulation? It seems almost cartoonishly excessive, even for critical safety applications.
- sigmar - 34883 sekunder sedanIt doesn't say worker, just "person." I could understand falling in with some freak accident where you trip. But they ingested the water?!
- almosthere - 29709 sekunder sedanIs he going to die no matter what or is this survivable?
- rurban - 8269 sekunder sedanPalisades was closed down 2022, but just reopened recently at August 27, 2025.
Hair contaminated
- mobeigi - 16583 sekunder sedanHopefully 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.
- notepad0x90 - 20585 sekunder sedanI 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?
- 0xDEAFBEAD - 34211 sekunder sedanYour periodic reminder that coal is deadlier than nuclear.
https://cns.utexas.edu/news/research/coal-power-killed-half-...
- lavela - 7035 sekunder sedanThese are quite a few reports for one day for a technology we purportedly have under full control, nothing to worry.
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- ggm - 12140 sekunder sedanDoes the operator go to court for OH&S breaches?
- piinbinary - 35205 sekunder sedanDoes anyone have a sense for how significant of a dose of radiation this person got?
- _qua - 33897 sekunder sedanInteresting page overall. Didn't realize reactors get scrammed that often.
- Cheezmeister - 4217 sekunder sedanFor 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.
- system2 - 11558 sekunder sedanThe rest of the event reports are also very active. Reactor sites are fun places to work.
- BirAdam - 31421 sekunder sedanIf my childhood taught me anything, it’s that there’s about to be an awesome superhero.
- JackAcid - 22696 sekunder sedanToxic Avenger remake.
- satisfice - 29444 sekunder sedanNo more horseplay around the reactor!
- qwertytyyuu - 23614 sekunder sedanI can't help but be reminded of relevant xkcd^{TM} https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
- pembrook - 32172 sekunder sedanMan 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.
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- amarant - 31316 sekunder sedanMandatory xkcd: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
- nojs - 35081 sekunder sedanApparently it’s fine according to this xkcd: https://youtu.be/EFRUL7vKdU8
- christina97 - 35084 sekunder sedanRelevant xkcd content: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
- defraudbah - 12142 sekunder sedanand so hulk was born
- aakkaakk - 16704 sekunder sedanNot bad, not terrible.
- iamronaldo - 33654 sekunder sedan
- chistev - 18442 sekunder sedanDude about to have superpowers and go after the government
- IngvarLynn - 29341 sekunder sedanrelevant xkcd not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreev_Bay_nuclear_accident#A...
- BobbyTables2 - 33448 sekunder sedanObligatory XKCD: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
(Not exactly same but close)
- jasonjmcghee - 34986 sekunder sedanObligatory xkcd (ish)
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- unit149 - 11016 sekunder sedan[dead]
- raqix - 31749 sekunder sedan[dead]
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- handal11 - 15850 sekunder sedanPusat bantuan shopee
- tedggh - 13691 sekunder sedanI 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.
- gomez4151 - 5481 sekunder sedan[flagged]
Nördnytt! 🤓