[HN Gopher] A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool
___________________________________________________________________
A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool
Author : nvahalik
Score : 621 points
Date : 2025-10-26 01:15 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nrc.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nrc.gov)
| piinbinary wrote:
| Does anyone have a sense for how significant of a dose of
| radiation this person got?
| kibwen wrote:
| 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.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| They keep the water in an LWR pretty clean to avoid corrosion
| problems. Thing is the slightest almost of tritium in the
| water will light up a portal detector like a pinball machine
| on tilt.
| tofof wrote:
| 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.
| ls612 wrote:
| Water is a pretty good radiation shield so probably not too
| much. Certainly not good for your health but probably not
| seriously threatening.
| specialp wrote:
| Not at all. My scintillating counter will do 300 cpm as
| background. The most concerning thing here will be the
| ingestion of the water. Even low level emitters can be very bad
| when the are inside the body
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| I'm not an expert in this topic but I've been working on a book
| in a related area and had to learn a lot. Here's what I can
| figure.
|
| Unfortunately radiation medicine is pretty complicated and the
| report gives us very little info, presumably mostly because
| they don't _have_ very much info. It will take some time and
| effort to establish more.
|
| What we do know is that they measured 300 CPM at the person's
| hair, which was probably where they expected the highest count
| due to absorbed water (likely clothing was already stripped at
| this point). CPM is a tricky unit because it is something like
| the "raw" value from the instrument, the literal number of
| counts from the tube, and determining more absolute metrics
| like activity and dose requires knowing the calibration of the
| meter. The annoying thing here is that radiation protection
| professionals will still sometimes just write CPM because for a
| lot of applications there's only one or a handful of
| instruments approved and they tend to figure the reader knows
| which instrument they have. Frustrating. Still, for the common
| LND7311 tube and Cs137, 300CPM is a little below 1 uSv/hr. That
| wouldn't equate to any meaningful risk (a common rule of thumb
| is that a couple mSv is typical annual background exposure).
| However, for a less sensitive detector, the dose could be much
| higher (LND7311 is often used in pancake probes for frisking
| _because_ it is very sensitive and just background is often
| hundreds of CPM). Someone who knows NRC practices better might
| know what detector would be used here.
|
| That said the field dose here is really not the concern,
| committed dose from ingesting the water is. Ingesting
| radioactive material is extremely dangerous because, depending
| on the specific isotopes involved, it can persist in the body
| for a very long time and accumulate in specific organs.
| Unfortunately it is also difficult to assess. This person will
| likely go to a hospital with a specialty center equipped with a
| full body counter, and counts will also be taken on blood
| samples. These are ways of estimating the amount of radioactive
| isotopes in the body. In some cases tissue samples of specific
| organs may be taken.
|
| I believe that the cavity pool water would be "clean" other
| than induced radioactivity (activation products from being
| bombarded by radiation). Because water shields so well the pool
| should not be that "hot" from this process. Most of those
| products have short half-lives which, on the one hand, means
| that they deliver a higher dose over a shorter period of time
| ---but also means they will not longer forever and are less
| likely to be a chronic problem if they are not an acute one.
|
| I suspect this will get some press coverage and we will perhaps
| learn more about the patient's state.
|
| Another way we can get at this question is by the bureaucracy
| of the notification. An 8-hour notification as done here is
| required in relatively minor cases. Usually for a "big deal
| emergency" a one-hour notification is required. The definition
| of such an emergency depends on the site emergency plan but I
| think acute radiation exposure to a worker would generally
| qualify.
| numpad0 wrote:
| "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.
| Hobadee wrote:
| I have _SOOO_ many questions, and this report answers _SOOO_ few
| of them.
| hshdhdhehd wrote:
| 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?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Almost certainly a refueling outage, this video will give you
| a good image of it
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoCfapqYy00
| Centigonal wrote:
| ooh, thank you for this!
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Palisades is not an operating reactor. It has been shut
| down since 2022. It's in the process of being
| recommissioned/restarted.
| JasonSage wrote:
| 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?
| _qua wrote:
| Realistically, there is little to do besides decontamination
| which I'm sure they're equipped to do on site.
| analog31 wrote:
| Anecdote: My house mate in grad school was working in a
| national lab when an experiment caught fire and the fire
| consumed a certain amount of radioactive material. (Tiny
| little buttons used for calibrating detectors). He was on
| shift and was the person who discovered the fire and pulled
| the alarm.
|
| Among other things, he had to sit inside an enclosure made of
| scintillator material for a period of time, to make sure he
| wasn't contaminated. Then he also got blood tests for heavy
| metals etc. They pretty much went by the book for all of
| these tests.
|
| Also, the facility is the only place that's equipped for this
| kind of situation.
| slicktux wrote:
| It's a process to come into a high radiation area, as well
| as, a process to come out; I'm sure the worker was not
| injured so they processed he/she out and decontaminated the
| individual and did a whole body count. Then release him to
| medical for evaluation...which in itself is a process.
| christina97 wrote:
| Relevant xkcd content: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
| parker-3461 wrote:
| So if I understand this correctly (solely from reading the
| xkcd), then the person might actually be okay?
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| They're totally fine.
|
| I find it highly informative that the required PPE for
| working in that location is a life jacket so you float in
| case you fall in, rather than a tether and fall arrest
| harness so that it's not possible to fall in.
|
| 300 CPM is nothing, background levels might be 150.
| _blk wrote:
| Background is probably a bit lower depending on where
| you're at. My counter went through airport security luggage
| scans 'cause they wouldn't let me wear it through the metal
| detector. It beeps for a few seconds and then comes out
| about a days' dose of natural radiation higher. The count
| was higher than 300 CPM, but obviously only shortly. That
| poor bloke might stay at 300 (if ingested and he can't
| scrub it off) for a while but it's still not very
| discouraging long-term. Pilots have about that at cruising
| altitude.
| kevincox wrote:
| > Plant officials today confirmed the worker sustained minor
| injuries from the fall and has already returned to work. -
| https://www.mlive.com/news/2025/10/michigan-nuclear-plant-
| wo...
|
| He went back to work the next day. They don't provide much
| detail about the minor injuries but it seems that the biggest
| issue is maybe a bruised shin from the fall.
| bn-l wrote:
| > You may actually receive a lower dose of radiation treading
| water in a spent fuel pool than walking around on the street.
|
| Wow
| sparky_z wrote:
| Is it relevant? It's writing about a pool for storing spent
| fuel, which is not a part of the actual reactor system.
| This incident report says that the worker fell into a "reactor
| cavity" containing water and that there was a measurable amount
| of radiation detected in their hair after the initial clean-up.
| The two situations don't seem remotely compatible to me.
| drysart wrote:
| I guarantee you there's 'a measurable amount of radiation' in
| your hair right now. Unless you're bald, I suppose.
| lisper wrote:
| And a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFRUL7vKdU8
| nojs wrote:
| Apparently it's fine according to this xkcd:
| https://youtu.be/EFRUL7vKdU8
| Centigonal wrote:
| It's the reactor cavity in this case, not a nuclear waste
| storage pool.
| mlindner wrote:
| How is that different from the accident point of view.
| They're both quite radioactive and both sit in deep pools of
| water.
| tapland wrote:
| Doesn't seem like the same pool if you measure 300 counts/min
| from their hair afterwards.
| hshdhdhehd wrote:
| That makes it sound like a feature! Might get some rods for my
| pool to keep her warm.
| hshdhdhehd wrote:
| > 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"
| anakaine wrote:
| Aussie surfer here, the stings typically are uncomfortable.
| Some of the deadlier ones can be close to painless and only
| result in itching and result in you dying from respiratory
| failure 24 hours later. Others are downright painful with even
| strong opiate based pain killers struggling to cut through the
| pain.
| cal_dent wrote:
| Hahaha eeesh that 2nd sentence took a turn
| viraptor wrote:
| Also it's in a way normalised to happen in a few places with
| beaches. There are vinegar stations every 100m or so.
| Basically a "yes, it will happen to a few of you".
|
| https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-
| prev...
| thomasfromcdnjs wrote:
| Just fyi, they don't put vinegars at the beaches anymore,
| apparently it makes it worse (well I haven't seen any for a
| long while)
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-08/vinegar-makes-box-
| jel...
| viraptor wrote:
| Townsville's Strand has a number of them for example.
| (Really bad lighting, but I believe it's that green
| board: https://maps.app.goo.gl/x7gggCjGwxVqDBx79?g_st=ac)
| I went down the Qld coast a couple of weeks ago and
| they're still very common.
| noduerme wrote:
| Is the deadly itchy one of those tiny box jellyfish? More
| than sharks or crocs, this is why I was an absolute coward
| and decided not to get in the water in Queensland. There are
| lots of ways to die, but I'd prefer not to blame myself in my
| last moments.
| dlcarrier wrote:
| Oceans are dangerous, but it's the water that's most likely
| to get you, even in Australia.
|
| If you ever become prime Minister of Australia, and find
| yourself on an oceanside bombing range, don't go spear
| fishing.
| foobar1962 wrote:
| A bite requires teeth. Sharks bite. Snakes bite. Bees and wasps
| sting. Jellyfish and bluebottles sting.
|
| Not sure about spiders. Are their fangs considered to be teeth?
| Platypus have venomous spurs, not sure what that's called.
| doubled112 wrote:
| Spiders bite. I've never heard it called anything else.
| KPGv2 wrote:
| Spiders bite with their fangs, much like vampires bite with
| their fangs, they don't sting. I might call the tarantula
| "hair" that makes you itch a sting, but I would feel a bit
| silly calling it that.
| dlcarrier wrote:
| Mosquitos bite with their nose.
| lstodd wrote:
| and blackflies/moshka just eat you
| roygbiv2 wrote:
| Oh I thought I couldn't hate them anymore and I learn this.
| My leg currently has large hives on it from multiple bites,
| the antihistamines I have are doing bugger all.
| Sharlin wrote:
| They bite (and suck) with their (elongated and specialized)
| mouthparts. Insects don't have noses (they breathe through
| their skin and smell primarily with their antennae).
| loeg wrote:
| Nah this is literally just not an emergency. The water isn't
| very radioactive.
| thayne wrote:
| It isn't an emergency. It was an accident that required medical
| attention.
|
| If you fell in a lake and accidentally ingested some wayer
| known to contain some pathagen dangerous to humans, you might
| seek medical care, but I don't think most people would consider
| that an emergency. This is similar.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| i mean it might be a medical emergency but not a reactor
| emergency?
| dlcarrier wrote:
| Or how Brits call a civil war "trouble"
| louthy wrote:
| We're not _that_ flippant, they're 'troubles', indicating
| _'ongoing concern'_.
| dudeinjapan wrote:
| Similar to how "math" becomes "maths"
| kmacdough wrote:
| There's no significant immediate threat to life or well-being.
| It's simply not an emergency. We're all constantly exposed to
| some ionizing radiation. It's a question of how much.
|
| In this case, not much. It's still an exposure event and
| absolutely worth giving medical attention to assess continued
| exposure levels from ingested contamination and generally be
| overly cautious. But that doesn't mean it's ultimately going to
| be a significant factor in this workers risk for radiation
| induced disease. It's certainly better than living in the
| vicinity of coal mining and processing plants.
| jasonjmcghee wrote:
| Obligatory xkcd (ish)
|
| https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
| tt_dev wrote:
| 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.
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| The Uranium Isotopes would also not be that terrible. It's the
| fission products that get you.
| mlindner wrote:
| 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.
| happyopossum wrote:
| Then where did their radioactive hair come from?
| roenxi wrote:
| The pool. But it isn't necessarily a problem - your hair,
| right now, is radioactive. Presumably wouldn't trip a
| measuring device because it'd be background levels.
|
| The linked report doesn't say how radioactive his hair is
| or give any indication of whether the person in question is
| threatened by this reading. Could be bad, could be nothing,
| we just know it is higher than normal.
| ComplexSystems wrote:
| It says "The individual was decontaminated by radiation
| protection personnel but had 300 counts per minute
| detected in their hair."
| roenxi wrote:
| It does say that. Can you translate that into a
| measurement of radioactivity & medical risk? I don't
| think it is obvious.
|
| _EDIT_ The report below it seems to literally be
| "nothing interesting happened". The thresholds here for
| something to be reportable are very low. Frankly I don't
| know why this story is upvoted so much but I'm not about
| to make a bigger deal about it than one sentence.
| sithadmin wrote:
| 300cpm is lower than what you'd be exposed to on a
| commercial airline flight (400-900ish cpm).
| doetoe wrote:
| But is that the same thing? 300cpm says something about
| the risk to someone near the worker, not about what the
| worker has been exposed to
| gblargg wrote:
| CPM is a function of the detector sensitivity/size and
| radiation level.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| For reference, this is about the same in your hair that
| you'd get from a few hours in a pub in the 90s, never
| mind working in one - surprising amount of radiation in
| cigarette smoke from polonium and lead-210.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| That's what I was thinking, but it does look like 300 cpm
| for a few hours is essentially nothing, or it looks real
| bad, I can't tell.
|
| I found this: Days to receive chronic dose
| for increase cancer risk of 1 in a 1,000 432 (at 100
| CPM) 86 (at 500 CPM)
|
| Ok so 300 for an hour (we'll assume the hair is cut off and
| the exposure either stops or 90% reduces) means no problem.
| Don't do that every day that's all.
|
| But it's from a prepper site that doesn't cite their own
| sources.
|
| I found this: https://www.energy.gov/ehss/articles/doe-
| ionizing-radiation-...
|
| Which uses rem instead of cpm. An on-line converter of
| unknown quality says 300 cpm is 500 rem, and the pdf from
| the .gov site says 500 rem is "death probable in 2-3
| weeks", but I think that chart is saying that's whole body
| & no therapy. Where this is probably mostly hair that can
| be just cut off totally let alone washed, and so the
| elevated exposure is probably both low and short duration,
| and medical therapy (whatever that means, if any in this
| case) on top.
|
| I can't tell, could be the same as just visting a country
| with a slightly higher background that isn't a problem for
| anyone, to dead in a month. Leaning towards no problem just
| because of the short time and apparently mostly external
| and removable source.
|
| However, it's not _nothing_ either. It 's maybe no problem
| for this person only because they avoided ingesting the
| water and the water was very quickly washed off and
| presumably their hair was cut off and all clothes etc
| removed as fast as possible. It's clearly at least "rather
| hot" and you can't just play in it and have prolonged
| exposure and ingestion. It doesn't seem to be "basically
| zero".
| roenxi wrote:
| The report doesn't read like something involving 500 rem
| and potential death in 3 weeks. It says "Non Emergency".
| Can you link to this converter? It seems to be a rather
| key step that got handwaved. Wiki says [0] there isn't a
| standard on what a "count" counts.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counts_per_minute
| aw1621107 wrote:
| This website [0] gives the same numbers (300 CPM -> 500
| REM). Seems like a candidate for what was used at the
| very least, and nothing else obviously appeared to claim
| a similar CPM -> REM conversion capability.
|
| Assuming this website was used, it looks like it does a
| naive multiplication by 5/3, which seems... simplistic?
| The rest of the page doesn't exactly fill me with
| confidence either. No indication of how the conversion
| factor was derived and there's a bunch of links to other
| CPM -> <radiation-related unit> calculators. On top of
| that, the landing page for the root domain boasts about
| AI capabilities and their AI page prominently features
| "Elevate Your Content Creation" and "Generate high-
| quality AI content with ease!"
|
| [0]: https://www.inayam.co/unit-
| converter/radioactivity/counts_pe...
| roenxi wrote:
| I'd love to know how they got to 5/3. It also offers CPM
| to half-life conversion which has to be at least poorly
| labelled. That would imply that if two piles of different
| radioactive substances emit the same amount of radiation
| (obviously different masses in each pile) they have the
| same half life. That isn't the case, half life depends on
| what the substance is which is radiating, not the
| measured amount of radiation emitted.
| aw1621107 wrote:
| Given their CPM to half-life conversion amounts to
| dividing by 60 (not to mention the nonsensical units),
| I'm not sure I'd place much faith in the website at all.
| rippeltippel wrote:
| What does it mean for airline pilots? From what I read,
| they are exposed to more than 400 CPM thought the year.
| scns wrote:
| Stewardesses become infertile earlier than women working
| on the ground.
| jojobas wrote:
| Water itself is activated by neutrons, even if slightly.
| mlindner wrote:
| How? Neutrons slamming into water would break it apart,
| turn it into hydrogen and oxygen, and possibly activate the
| hydrogen into deuterium or tritium. But once it's hydrogen
| (or an isotope of it) it'll turn gaseous and be filtered
| off.
| jojobas wrote:
| In order to become gaseous they need to combine with
| another atom of the same kind torn free, which is about
| as likely as combining with a free atom of another kind,
| form an HO radical and stay liquid.
|
| Tritiated water is a reality of reactor pools.
| golem14 wrote:
| Obligatory what-if:
|
| https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
| nashashmi wrote:
| Is it not Heavy Water?
| loeg wrote:
| Mostly no.
| mafuy wrote:
| No, just pure water. It's used to isolate against radiation
| leaks.
| robocat wrote:
| FYI: the primary hazard from acute, high-dose
| uranium ingestion is chemical toxicity leading to acute kidney
| failure (nephrotoxicity), not radiation.
| anothernewdude wrote:
| Fuck me, is there anything fun that isn't nephrotoxic?
| arthurcolle wrote:
| Menu tonight is neurotoxic or nephrotoxic
| DoctorDabadedoo wrote:
| Would you have a fusion menu tasting? We are celebrating
| tonight.
| Filligree wrote:
| Helium is pretty tasteless.
| archon810 wrote:
| "Sir, just stop chewing on the menu and move on to the
| food."
| quitit wrote:
| I read this in the voice of GLaDOS
| kybernetyk wrote:
| shrooms
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| think again
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221175
| 391...
| j16sdiz wrote:
| Copying the abstract here, just in case anybody don't
| have access:
|
| Emily Austin, Hilary S. Myron, Richard K. Summerbell,
| Constance A. Mackenzie, Acute renal injury cause by
| confirmed Psilocybe cubensis mushroom ingestion,
|
| Medical Mycology Case Reports, Volume 23, 2019, Pages
| 55-57, ISSN 2211-7539,
|
| https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mmcr.2018.12.007. (https://www.
| sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221175391...)
|
| Abstract: Psilocybe mushrooms are consumed for their
| hallucinogenic properties. Fortunately, there are
| relatively few adverse effects associated with their
| consumption. This is the first reported case of acute
| kidney injury (AKI) secondary to confirmed ingestion of
| Psilocybe cubensis mushroom. A 15-year-old male developed
| symptomatic AKI 36 h post-ingestion of Psilocybe cubensis
| mushrooms. He was admitted to hospital with hypertension,
| nausea and abdominal pain and a creatinine of 450 mmol/L.
| A sample of the crop of mushrooms was confirmed by mass
| spectrometry to contain psilocin. On day 5 post-
| admission, he was discharged home. Outpatient follow-up
| confirmed complete resolution of his renal function.
|
| Keywords: Psilocybe; Nephrotoxicity; Mushrooms; Kidney
| injury
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Kind of a cool read. They're not really sure why the P.
| cubensis was nephrotoxic. The sample they put through
| mass spec didn't contain the compound (Orellanine) that
| the clinical presentation lined up with, and none of the
| other youths who ate from that crop of mushrooms had
| subsequent problems.
|
| I wonder if there was an accidental polyculture issue,
| either with a different mushroom or a freak mutation that
| caused that particular shroom to synthesize toxic
| compounds. When growing directly from spores, you get
| mixed genetics, so your various mushrooms will grow
| slightly differently (if you want consistent genetics you
| grow clones from an isolate via agar plate or tissue
| sample from fruiting body).
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| PDE5 (viagra, cyalis) improve the health of the
| cardiovascular system, thus improve kidney health and I
| greatly enjoy them.
|
| This is well researched and just like with semaglutide I
| believe a big part of the population should take daily
| tadalafil.
|
| Better cardiovascular health, more erections and many
| positive downstream effects (lower E:T ratio, weight loss)
| that are beyond the scope of this comment.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| People should probably try improve their CV health via
| exercise, rather than pills, wherever possible.
| sigmoid10 wrote:
| Doctors have been telling us that for decades now and
| still noone does it despite overwhelming evidence. I
| guess the average Joe will always need a cheap workaround
| drug rather than putting themselves at any level of
| physical discomfort.
| kakacik wrote:
| Lazy people will be lazy, whatever nasty side effect it
| brings down the line. These days they will also 'brag'
| about it online.
| mulnz wrote:
| Why?
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Because of all the other physiological and mental
| benefits that come from the exercise that the pill won't
| give you?
| smokel wrote:
| It might be empirically sound, but it does not make a
| priori sense that exercising a body will improve it. If I
| use almost any object in the universe frequently, it
| typically degrades rather than improves.
|
| The health benefits of exercise are most likely due to
| improved blood flow and related physiological effects. In
| principle, pills could theoretically achieve similar
| outcomes by enhancing circulation or other underlying
| mechanisms.
|
| Not taking sides here, just reasoning out loud.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| In the context of running, physiological benefits I'm
| familiar with include improvements to bone density and
| joint health, increased capillarisation and therefore
| blood flow in the muscles and improved energy efficiency
| in cells.
|
| I suspect you're not going to find a pill or combination
| of pills that can achieve those outcomes. And again,
| we're ignoring the mental health benefits.
| motorest wrote:
| > It might be empirically sound, but it does not make a
| priori sense that exercising a body will improve it. If I
| use almost any object in the universe frequently, it
| typically degrades rather than improves.
|
| Rejecting all evidence, denying observations, and leaning
| heavily on half-baked hypothesis that culminate somehow
| on a gotcha. That sounds an awful lot like something
| someone who "does their own research" would say.
|
| Yes, extreme levels of high-intensity exercise have
| adverse side effects. Cross-fit and rhadbo is an example.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhabdomyolysis
|
| Drinking water also does everyone good, and everyone's
| health will improve if they increase their water intake,
| but drinking water in excess can also be fatal. Does this
| mean that the idea that drinking water does you good
| "does not make a priori sense"?
|
| No, it doesn't.
| untrust wrote:
| Doing resistance training will mechanically stress the
| ligaments, bones and muscles which results in your body
| reinforcing and strengthening them. This is important to
| do on a localized level, as hypertrophy of the heart is
| not good whereas hypertrophy of the leg muscles is. You
| cant do this in pill form (at least yet)
| dredmorbius wrote:
| It turns out that there's a wealth of evidence which
| shows that _appropriate introductions of stress_ (cardio
| training, resistance training, fine-motor-control
| practice) _do_ in fact lead to improvements: greater
| heart health, better pulmonary function, increased
| strength, greater bone density, improved blood sugar
| regulation, decreased overall stress response, and more.
|
| Yes, overtraining is possible (and not infrequent,
| particularly by those who fail to read or ignore the
| evidence). But an absolutely sedentary lifestyle is
| exceptionally fatal.
|
| Medications (as with exercise) come with both intended
| and _unintended_ consequences, as well as costs and
| inconveniences. Generally the more extreme the condition
| you 're treating, the more likely that medications will
| carry some of these disadvantages (e.g., chemotherapy
| against cancer, where the goal is often to kill the
| malignancy at least slightly faster than one kills the
| patient). Exercise operates through complex feedback
| cycles and mechanisms, not all of which are well-
| understood (as an example, _why muscle grows in response
| to strength training_ being a fundamental case despite
| much information on _how_ muscle responds to _which_
| specific training protocols). Medications can _amplify_
| training response (e.g., anabolic steroids for strength
| training athletes), but often don 't _by themselves_
| substitute for it.
|
| This is why, in a broader sense, that the Baconian
| scientific method does not rely simply on _a priori_
| hypotheses, but _tests_ these with experiment and
| evidence, that is, _empirically_. The ultimate critique
| of pure reason is that whilst it can be a useful guide
| for what you then want to test empirically, it has a
| phenomenal tendency to lead one to utterly fallacious and
| /or irrelevant conclusions.
|
| One of the more robust sets of evidence on both the
| negative effects of a zero-stress lifestyle _and_ of the
| benefits of regular cardio and strength training is that
| accumulated through long-term space missions, largely
| aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
| Microgravity would be the ultimate low-stress
| environment, and it turns out to be _seriously harmful_.
| Astronauts there are tested before and after missions,
| with various measures of fitness loss. With time-in-space
| being an immensely valuable resource, astronauts _also_
| spend _two hours_ per day engaged in physical exercise (
| <https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronauts/living-in-
| space/phy...>), or 1/8 of their waking schedule.
|
| Online, ExRx (<https://exrx.net/>) has a large library of
| fitness information, including a list of online journals
| (<https://exrx.net/Journals>) and expert talks
| (<https://exrx.net/Talks>). Good books on fitness will
| link to research substantiating recommendations (Lou
| Schuler's _New Rules of Lifting_ series is a good example
| of this).
| froggit wrote:
| Excessive exercise might not be healthy? No shit?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Medication _frequently_ (though not always) provides
| benefits that may be achieved at least in part by non-
| medical means: lifestyle (adequate sleep, low stress,
| reduced exposure to contaminants and pollutants), diet
| (preferring healthier to unhealthier foods, generally),
| and exercise (itself comprised of multiple modalities,
| including cardio, strength training, fine motor control,
| and others).
|
| The best results are achieved when these are working
| _together_ toward some health or fitness goal. It 's far
| more effective to align your lifestyle, diet, exercise,
| and medications than to have these working against one
| another (I'll take this pill to compensate for my
| drinking / smoking / drug use / pollution exposure /
| stress, etc.). Of course, that's not always possible, and
| there are circumstances where it's difficult or
| impossible to attain some of these mechanisms
| (parapalegic, living in a highly polluted environment,
| inherently stressful living conditions, GI compromise
| limiting eating or diet, congenital or genetic conditions
| or predispositions). Even here, if the patient can make
| _some_ progress in a specific modality, they 'll probably
| see _some_ benefit.
|
| Some of the most impressive athletes I've seen, from a
| sheer grit perspective, are those who are working against
| some major limitation: the swimmer at a health club long
| ago paralyzed in both legs, the one-legged open-water
| swimmer, old farts with their pacemakers showing through
| their chests swimming in the San Francisco Bay, patients
| with diabetes, heart failure, Parkinsons, recovering from
| cancer, with various injuries or scars, still at it. Some
| are astonishingly good by any measure, many aren't, but
| damned if they're not _trying_ and generally living far
| better than if they weren 't.
|
| This isn't "don't take your meds", it's "use all the
| available tools". Lifestyle, diet, an exercise are
| underrated and powerful tools.
|
| "You don't look like your medical history" is a high
| compliment coming from a doctor, and I'd strongly
| recommend earning it.
| cj wrote:
| > This isn't "don't take your meds", it's "use all the
| available tools".
|
| Agreed - low dose daily cialis/tadalafil (e.g. 5mg/day)
| is very common among elite athletes, bodybuilders, etc.
| As are GLP-1's despite elite athletes rarely being
| overweight.
|
| Tadalafil is taken for its endothelial benefits
| (erections are a convenient side effect), and GLP's for
| its nutrient partitioning and insulin sensitization
| effects.
|
| Medications are very often most effective when paired
| with good lifestyle habits, rather than one of the other.
|
| It also depends on what your goals are, obviously.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| At a baseline, healthy vitals (blood pressure, blood
| sugar, heart function, preservation of bone mass/density,
| and lean/muscle mass, avoiding accumulation of excess
| fat, particularly visceral / mid-section fat).
|
| Beyond that, if goals are for specific _performance_
| targets, in some athletic or competitive activity, you
| 'll want to tune your training toward that. Again, the
| _baseline_ is remarkably consistent, it 's the high-
| performer tuning which varies.
|
| Going off-label on prescriptions, _especially_ without a
| doctor 's supervision, carries its own set of risks. If
| you're lucky, it's only wasted money. If you're not, it's
| markedly worse.
| cj wrote:
| > Going off-label on prescriptions, especially without a
| doctor's supervision, carries its own set of risks.
|
| The biggest hurdle I've encountered personally is primary
| care doctors deal with very sick people every day
| (terrible diet, terrible body composition, terrible
| alcohol/drug habits, etc). And that's who they optimize
| their care for.
|
| If you show up to a PCP and you're in shape, all vitals
| on point, all bloodwork looking good, the last thing the
| PCP wants to do is prescribe anything because "you don't
| need it" and "you're not sick".
|
| Most doctors simply don't care about helping you optimize
| your health once you've reached "healthier than average"
| status.
|
| This leads a lot of people to doing their own research,
| and finding health clinics outside of insurance that
| cater to health optimization, anti-aging, and non-
| standard treatments (like prescribing GLP's to people who
| aren't overweight, or Cialis for people who don't have
| ED). These clinics also aren't very good because, while
| they are indeed doctors or NPs, they make money off
| selling you prescriptions, so they are biased and usually
| push medications you might not really need or want.
| (Which again emphasizes the importance of self-education
| and doing your own research).
|
| For drugs like GLP-1's, there are a whole lot of
| anecdotal benefits outside of weight loss. The problem
| with the drug industry is once a drug is approved for its
| most profitable use case, drug makers don't bother to
| pursue additional FDA approvals for additional
| indications because the headache isn't worth the
| (marginal) extra revenue.
|
| I very much wish there were a category of doctors
| specializing in treating healthy people looking to
| optimize their health further.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| _I very much wish there were a category of doctors..._
|
| "Sports medicine".
|
| <https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/24627-spo
| rts-...>
|
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_medicine>
|
| You might also look into nutrition and dietetics and
| exercise physiology. If you're looking at cognitive
| function, neuropsychology and possibly some psychotherapy
| specialisations.
|
| "Wellness coaching" is starting to get into the woo /
| overly-self-interested / conflicted domain, though there
| are probably a few good apples. I'd proceed with extreme
| caution however. There are plenty of docs who're more
| than happy to provide what a patient asks (and is willing
| to pay top dollar) for.
| arijun wrote:
| Why not both?
|
| Every person has a limit of how much time and energy they
| can put into exercise. If they can go beyond that with a
| pill (with no other cost), why wouldn't you want everyone
| to take it?
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Sure, but let's start with promoting the 90 percenter
| rather than the 1 percenter then.
| nosianu wrote:
| Better than exercise is a better normal lifestyle. Trying
| to compensate in an hour what went wrong most of the day
| or week, and with your diet, is far from optimal.
|
| One of many, looking at just one detail (sitting):
| https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/sitting-
| may-i...
|
| From a personal experience, so it's just a guess, a
| contributor may be fluid movement in the body. Fluid in
| blood vessels are pumped directly, but must fluid is not
| in blood vessels. The heart has a diminishing effect
| outside the vessels (capillaries have small holes to let
| water and small molecules through into extracellular
| space, and then to collect it back, rest goes through the
| lymphatic system which also drains back into the
| bloodstream). Muscle and body movement helps. From what I
| experienced and experimented, just walking did a lot more
| than running. I focus on this specifically due to
| personal health experiences that I don't want to go into
| that let me feel a clear difference, where intensive
| running did hardly anything but then just walking did, an
| experiment I performed during a period of my life when
| "getting stuff out from all over my body" mattered.
|
| Personally, I choose to run only when my brain/body tell
| me to, when I feel like it. Definitely not when I would
| have to fight myself to get going. (If your body/brain
| tells you the opposite then it is what it is, personal
| feel over generic advice)
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Exercise is a better normal lifestyle. Standing isn't of
| sitting isn't going to fix much, given the key finding in
| most relevant studies is that frequent movement is
| necessary (albeit it's easier and more natural when
| already standing).
| nick49488171 wrote:
| How about walking desk?
| froggit wrote:
| Kinda seems like taking boner pills encourages certain
| types of physical activity.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Do you not have any negative side effects? When I tried I
| felt this tightness and weird headache that I don't
| otherwise ever experience, brain fog and also nasal
| symptoms.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| On high dosages (20mg tadalafil daily), diarrhoea, which
| ironically makes the backside useless while the frontside
| works better. And some congestion.
|
| 5mg daily tadalafil is fine for me though and that's also
| the normal daily dosage.
| contrarian1234 wrote:
| unfortunately i was surprised that even the generic is
| kinda pricey to take every day. At the smallest available
| dose it was 5 usd a pill (last i checked in China)
| AstroNutt wrote:
| I just checked my text from Walmart last week saying my
| Tadalafil was ready for pickup. It was literally $25.60
| for a 30 day supply of 10mg and I currently don't have
| insurance. 100% out of pocket.
| contrarian1234 wrote:
| interesting. thanks for letting me know. in Taiwan it was
| also not cheap (and requires a prescription and doctor
| visit) Guess Ill keep looking around. id sort of given up
| using it regularly
| dwedge wrote:
| What about migraines though? Or do you keep the dose low
| enough to avoid that?
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| Researched daily dose is usually 5mg tadalafil.
| layer8 wrote:
| Uranium ingestion is fun?
| yread wrote:
| Sounds like it was a lot more serious for the water than for
| the worker
| sigmar wrote:
| It doesn't say worker, just "person." I could understand falling
| in with some freak accident where you trip. But they ingested the
| water?!
| pixl97 wrote:
| 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.
| viraptor wrote:
| 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)
| rtpg wrote:
| probably likely just a thing that happens when you suddenly
| fall into a pool of water?
| andy99 wrote:
| 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?
| donatj wrote:
| 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.
| andy99 wrote:
| 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?
| antonvs wrote:
| "Complaining about residual radiation is for the weak."
| -- Lt. Worf probably
| speed_spread wrote:
| Klingon nuclear pools have springboards.
| grogenaut wrote:
| numbers matter. A human naturally gives off 0.2mSv/year.
| so basically you are emitting radiation right now, just
| very slowly. They had 300 counts per minute which would e
| around 6200 mSv year. But how much is that? the limit in
| a year for some body parts goes up to 500mSv year for
| workers. But that's if their body are getting that much
| radiation for the whole year.
|
| TL;DR you're always getting some ionizing radiation, how
| much matters.
| simoncion wrote:
| > They had 300 counts per minute which would e around
| 6200 mSv year
|
| Are you _sure_ about that? 6200 mSv is 6.2 Sv, which I
| understand to be near-universally deadly. That dosage
| would be profoundly incompatible with the news that the
| worker was being sent offsite to seek _non-emergency_
| medical attention.
|
| Poking around, it looks like "counts per minute" have to
| get converted to a dosage using an instrument-specific
| formula. I CBA to go find that formula, but you're quite
| welcome to.
| grogenaut wrote:
| no not sure. yeah I used the an average instrument
| specific rate. The point is a) everything emits, b) we
| have no idea on severity from the info, could be a
| little, could be a lot. Could also be short term
| (haircut) or longer term (ingested) exposures.
| simoncion wrote:
| > yeah I used the an average instrument specific rate.
|
| Would you provide a link to the source of this average
| instrument specific rate?
|
| I'm interested in knowing which instruments designed to
| detect low-to-medium-level radiation sources on a human
| are configured so that five detections per second would
| equate to a "You're fucking dead; there's really no hope
| for you" dose.
|
| (Did you ask an LLM to "convert counts per minute to mSv"
| and fail to sanity-check the confident-sounding result it
| gave you?)
|
| > ...everything emits...
|
| Given that the crust and sea and air of this planet are
| chock full of radioactives, and that every living thing
| on the planet builds itself out of that material, that
| goes without saying.
| hunterpayne wrote:
| You need a device that can measure the different types of
| radiation. Then you have to do a bunch of calculations to
| estimate absorption. Only then can you calculate Greys
| which is the measurement that matters.
|
| PS 300 CPM is nothing. There are places where people live
| where the natural background radiation is higher than
| that. Also, background radiation is mostly Gamma rays
| which is more dangerous than what comes off of fission
| products or nuclear fuel.
| hunterpayne wrote:
| Rate matters. 6.2Sv in a single hour is fatal. 6.2Sv in a
| single year is probably less than average for a human
| from background radiation. The measurement units for
| ionizing radiation are very complicated and confusing.
| That's why people are told to not try to compute this
| stuff yourself. I have code that computes these units and
| conversions, its not simple. Here is a brief and
| simplified explanation of how you calculate this stuff.
|
| There are 4 types of ionizing radiation: alpha, beta,
| gamma/x-rays and neutron flux. Each one has a different
| rate it is blocked by different materials (water, air,
| etc). Each one has a different risk to people. You have
| to compute counts per unit time emitted from a point
| source for each of the different types of radiation. Then
| you have to compute the amount of "arc" the person is in.
| Then you have counts being absorbed and you next multiply
| each count by a fixed factor depending on the type of
| radiation. This final number gives you total Greys per
| unit time, then you then have to divide by the mass of
| the person. Then you multiple that number by the total
| amount of time and that gives you total Greys absorbed.
| That's the number you use to assess risk to the person.
| For reference, this guy probably got less than 1 Grey.
| Someone getting radiation treatment for cancer might get
| 75 Greys.
|
| So please stop trying to calculate this stuff yourself.
| I'm pretty sure you are doing it wrong. This guy will be
| fine.
|
| PS Sieverts are a physical measure, Greys are a measure
| of biological "harm".
| simoncion wrote:
| > PS Sieverts are a physical measure, Greys are a measure
| of biological "harm".
|
| The US's NRC disagrees with you. From [0], they say this
| about the sievert and rem: Dose
| equivalent A measure of the biological damage
| to living tissue as a result of radiation exposure. Also
| known as the " biological dose," the dose equivalent is
| calculated as the product of absorbed dose in tissue
| multiplied by a quality factor and then sometimes
| multiplied by other necessary modifying factors at the
| location of interest. The dose equivalent is expressed
| numerically in rems or sieverts (Sv) (see 10 CFR
| 20.1003). For additional information, see Doses in Our
| Daily Lives and Measuring Radiation.
|
| and have this to say about the gray:
| Dose, absorbed The amount of energy absorbed by
| an object or person per unit mass. Known as the "absorbed
| dose," this reflects the amount of energy that ionizing
| radiation sources deposit in materials through which they
| pass, and is measured in units of radiation-absorbed dose
| (rad). The related international system unit is the gray
| (Gy), where 1 Gy is equivalent to 100 rad. For additional
| information, see Doses in Our Daily Lives and Measuring
| Radiation.
|
| Grays seem to be "amount of radiation absorbed per kg".
| Looking further, the "Measuring Radiation" page at [1]
| directly contradicts your claim. Speaking about rems and
| Svs, it says: Dose equivalent (or
| effective dose) combines the amount of radiation absorbed
| and the medical effects of that type of radiation. For
| beta and gamma radiation, the dose equivalent is the same
| as the absorbed dose. By contrast, the dose equivalent is
| larger than the absorbed dose for alpha and neutron
| radiation, because these types of radiation are more
| damaging to the human body.
|
| I'm definitely not an expert, but the NRC is pretty
| official, and their explanations sound pretty clear to
| me. Is what they're saying here incorrect?
|
| > 6.2Sv in a single year is probably less than average
| for a human from background radiation.
|
| Are you _sure_ about that? <https://xkcd.com/radiation/>
| claims 4 mSv per year as normal radiation dosage, and 50
| mSv per year as maximum permitted annual dosage for "US
| radiation workers", whatever that means.
|
| I think you're off by a factor of a _thousand_ for the
| typical exposure level and off by a factor of a hundred
| for the exposure level where they stop letting you work
| near the radioactives for a year.
|
| [0] <https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-
| ref/glossary/full-text>
|
| [1] <https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/health-
| effects/measu...>
| hunterpayne wrote:
| No, you are just confused about the technical jargon
| being used. That text is written for people who have had
| this jargon hammered into them and is very confusing to
| people who haven't. This is why people are told to not
| try to do the calculations themselves.
|
| "Dose absorbed" is a physical measure of ionizing
| radiation that is directed at something. That's measured
| in rems or sieverts (or Grays, notice the spelling).
| "Dose equivalent" is a medical measure of the risk caused
| by that "Dose absorbed". That's measured in Greys (with
| an E, not an A). Both those measures combine the count
| rates for the 4 different types of radiation into 1
| amount. "Dose equivalent" goes farther and is meant to
| calculate medical risk to a living person. Even more
| confusing there is a Gray (dose absorbed) and a Grey
| (biological impact of a dose absorbed, or dose
| equivalent); they are different.
|
| The part about beta and gamma radiation is about
| establishing a baseline for converting between the two
| units but should never be used for calculating "dose
| equivalent" in practice. Its how we determine the value
| of 1 Grey. It isn't a way to convert from "dose
| equivalent" to "dose absorbed".
|
| I'm trying to simplify this stuff for an audience without
| the necessary background information. Doing that requires
| me cutting out a bunch of details. The NRC text on the
| other hand is technically precise but also is mentioning
| a lot of things that are true but confusing or only
| useful for calibrating instruments. They are also
| explaining one tiny part of this and you left out the
| parts where they talk about how to combine the different
| counts for each type of radiation into one measurement.
| That's something else I'm also trying to explain at the
| same time. So I'm covering more ground and trying to do
| so with simpler terms. That's going to mean you can
| cherry pick stuff but doing that will to give you the
| wrong impression.
|
| Natural background radiation varies by location on earth
| by a factor of 300. That 4 mSv per year is for natural
| background radiation at the low end of the scale which
| happens at sea level in places without Uranium or Thorium
| deposits. However, there are places where people live
| (and have lived for 1000s of years) where the natural
| background radiation is 300x that amount or about
| 1.2Sv/year. There is no observed increase in cancer rates
| in those locations despite decades of study. I'm also
| assuming that the "normal person" will take a flight or
| two and potentially be near other sources of radiation
| without knowing it (like your smoke detector).
|
| PS The 50 mSv/year number is absurdly low. Its one of the
| main complaints about how the NRC handles nuclear
| radiation. Its literally lower than the natural
| background radiation at sites in India and Brazil.
| jojobas wrote:
| Hair can't hold that much water compared to any ingested
| amount. Whether contaminated or activated, internal
| irradiation from that much will be pretty bad.
| mpyne wrote:
| Bananas emit detectable radiation, so you should probably
| choose different thresholds of what causes you to
| consider something dangerous.
|
| They will still try to decontaminate you of any
| radioactive materials they can scrub off as a matter of
| course, but 300 counts per minute, while noticeably
| higher than background radiation levels, is pretty benign
| in the grand scheme of things. The fact that you can
| still count individual radioactive emissions is
| incredibly good news compared to how bad things could be.
|
| Especially since the reactor will have been shutdown for
| some time by definition, if the reactor cavity is open
| enough to fall into. Hopefully the low rate of
| radioactivity evidenced by the counts on the person's
| hair is matched by the level of radioactivity in the
| water.
|
| And on that note, medical attention would also be
| provided as a matter of course after a fall like this,
| but it seems to me that the physical injury of falling
| some distance and possibly hitting metal on the way down
| is going to be more of a danger than the radiation,
| especially compared to the sources of radiation people
| naturally run into (especially cigarette smoke, whether
| primary or secondhand).
| orwin wrote:
| CPM is so useless as a unit, it doesn't mean anything.
| ang_cire wrote:
| It's not open to the public, but workers have to go into
| dangerous places to do maintenance. The refueling
| process, for example, requires removing spent fuel rods
| and inserting new ones, and for that the core has to be
| opened. It's not running, i.e. fissioning, but it's still
| radioactive material (water included).
| lelandbatey wrote:
| 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.
| scarier wrote:
| It seems reasonable and prudent to go through
| decontamination after this sort of thing, but if the
| worker had just gone home to their family soaking wet
| without changing, there would still have been close
| enough to zero risk to anyone (again, cleaning up and
| making sure this is the case is a very reasonable thing
| to do).
|
| This sort of place is safe enough to bring your kid into
| without significant precautions (I got to do this as a
| kid--it was really cool). The biggest risk by far is
| drowning.
|
| Relevant XKCD: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
| simoncion wrote:
| In addition to what most of the folks are saying:
|
| 0) If you've not read this chart, do carefully read it:
| <https://xkcd.com/radiation/>. If you've read it before,
| take some time to carefully re-read it.
|
| 1) The guy's getting sent off to seek _non-emergency_
| medical attention. I bet you an entire American Nickle
| that that attention is almost entirely for injuries
| sustained in the fall, rather than for radiation
| exposure.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| What you "need to" do is often not decided by a rational
| risk assessment.
| ern wrote:
| I get a feeling that there are a lot of people trying to
| minimize this incident for some reason.
| hunterpayne wrote:
| I get the feeling that you don't know how complicated
| calculating radiation exposure is. There are plenty of
| interest in fear mongering against nuclear. Almost all
| the people talking about how much radiation 300 CPM is
| have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Some
| confuse total measurement units for rates; others are
| using just the wrong units; still others are talking
| about levels that are 1000x or 1000000x higher than 300
| CPM.
|
| Or to put it another way, 300 CPM (which is a rate) is
| less than how much radiation you get when on a flight, or
| how much radiation you get at higher elevations. Even
| giving a simple explanation of how to calculate Greys
| (the actual measure you are looking for) takes up the
| better part of a page. Hell, your bones are radioactive.
| Yet there are plenty of people posting that somehow the
| risk to this guy is radioactivity. In reality, his
| biggest problem is probably going to be finding a new
| job.
| orwin wrote:
| CPM doesn't mean anything, it's useless to compare it to
| anything without more information.
|
| For his job, depends on the dose he took. In my country
| he would have been on benefits until the dose was
| calculated, then if possible, reintegrated in the team,
| or directed towards a new job if not (paid formation and
| everything). I've studied with a diver who couldn't work
| with radioactive trash anymore, he wasn't meant to be a
| SWE in the end, he now dive for unexploded WW2 stuff in
| the north sea/Baltic I think
| hunterpayne wrote:
| In a way you are right, but in another way you are wrong.
| Background radiation is mostly gamma which is generally
| the most dangerous kind. Radiation at a nuclear plant is
| mostly alpha and beta which are less dangerous at the
| same CPM rates. So technically you are right, you have to
| calculate the absorption, but in practice you are wrong
| because at that rate, there is no way he absorbed enough
| radiation to be dangerous.
| andy99 wrote:
| Yeah I stopped really looking at replies when I realized
| it was just a bunch of people telling me that falling in
| a nuclear reactor pool isn't that bad and to go read the
| XKCD again if I don't get it.
| forthac wrote:
| 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.
| bmacho wrote:
| Huh why not. It's far less dangerous than, say, a train
| station or a viewpoint where everyone can just jump and die.
| Many reactors are open for kids and class trips where
| everyone can stare into a reactor
| _qua wrote:
| Not a good place to be a klutz!
| hammock wrote:
| When I was a kid I was amazed at how many of the other kids
| would take pool water in their mouth and drool it out, simply
| as a normal part of their treading water. I thought they were
| weird for this but it was really about 1 out of every 3 or 4
| kids I noticed that did this.
| 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
| Your periodic reminder that coal is deadlier than nuclear.
|
| https://cns.utexas.edu/news/research/coal-power-killed-half-...
| bn-l wrote:
| More radiation released also which is hard to get your head
| around.
| Zak wrote:
| Not really hard: nuclear power generation uses radiation and
| radioactive material, but tries very hard not to _release_
| it. Coal power generation burns a substance that contains a
| small amount of radioactive material, and makes no effort not
| to release radiation.
| mlindner wrote:
| It's not that surprising. We're burning a rock we dug out of
| the ground and turning it into a vapor. Rocks found
| underground contain some amount of natural radioactive
| material, for example granite/marble tend to be higher in
| radiation. If you burn that into a powder and put it into the
| atmosphere it'll spread around and expose the nearby area to
| very slightly radioactive pollution.
| _qua wrote:
| Interesting page overall. Didn't realize reactors get scrammed
| that often.
| fwlr wrote:
| Scrolling up and down the list, just how onerous is this
| reporting regulation? It seems almost cartoonishly excessive,
| even for critical safety applications.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Having the infrastructure for reporting incidents is the
| expensive part.
|
| Doing it often doesn't really add to the cost. More reporting
| is helpful because it explicitly makes it clear even
| operational issues can have lessons to be learned from. It also
| keeps the reporting system running and operationally well
| maintained.
|
| WebPKI does this as well.
| ang_cire wrote:
| 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.
| pembrook wrote:
| Aaaand it's this alarmist attitude which is why we don't have
| abundant cheap nuclear energy.
|
| Sea-drilling rigs (oil) have far more potential for
| environmental damage than modern nuclear plants
|
| Yet they have no federal public register for when a worker
| falls overboard (an incident far more likely to result in
| death).
| antonvs wrote:
| > Sea-drilling rigs (oil) have far more potential for
| environmental damage than modern nuclear plants
|
| Key word: "modern". A key aspect of a modern nuclear plant,
| that supports its high level of safety, is the required
| incident reporting and followup.
|
| The relevant issue is not really about a single worker
| being injured or dying. It's about detecting safety issues
| which could lead to a catastrophe far beyond what a sea oil
| drilling rig can, at least when it comes to human life and
| habitability of the surrounding area.
|
| For example, after Chernobyl, much of Europe had to deal
| with contamination from cesium 137.
|
| The entire planet's geological history shows when the
| nuclear age started, because humans are irresponsible in
| aggregate. (See also global warming.)
|
| > Aaaand it's this alarmist attitude ...
|
| You're providing an object lesson in why humans can't
| really be trusted to operate systems like this over the
| long term.
| hunterpayne wrote:
| > You're providing an object lesson in why humans can't
| really be trusted to operate systems like this over the
| long term.
|
| Ironically so are you. The coal we burn puts far more
| radioactivity into the environment than nuclear plants
| do. Yet we make sure nuclear isn't viable and burn coal
| like crazy. We do this only because of the type of risk
| telescoping you are doing. If you do a rational risk
| assessment, you will see that even operating nuclear
| plants as shown in the Simpsons would have less risk than
| what we are doing now. There is a risk to doing nothing.
| You are missing that part in your assessment.
| pembrook wrote:
| > _It 's about detecting safety issues which could lead
| to a catastrophe far beyond what a sea oil drilling rig
| can_
|
| A worker falling into a reactor pool (which is just room
| temp water with very little risk) is not a catastrophe,
| yet due to the absurd safetyism surrounding nuclear it
| requires a federal report.
|
| We don't require this level of cost insanity for far more
| deadly worker events at oil, gas, solar or wind
| facilities.
|
| There is no systemic risk from worker falls. MAYBE the
| plant in question should address hand railing heights
| from pre-ADA construction. It certainly shouldn't require
| multiple federal government employees to create a report
| on it and be publicly listed in federal register and
| reported on by hundreds of news outlets.
|
| You're making my point.
| ang_cire wrote:
| > Not just because of the safety of the plant itself, but
| _because so much is reliant on it_.
|
| When an oil rig has an incident, cities and hospitals and
| food storage and logistics aren't disrupted.
| iamronaldo wrote:
| https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
| thret wrote:
| This may be the most relevant xkcd yet. It answered all
| questions I had about this, thank you.
| lisper wrote:
| And a video version:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFRUL7vKdU8&t=11s
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| Obligatory XKCD: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
|
| (Not exactly same but close)
| Animats wrote:
| 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...
| croemer wrote:
| Archive of [2] (blocked me): https://archive.ph/0pzuY
| wiz21c wrote:
| dunno if the life vest bit comment of yours was sarcastic, but
| it is a funny remark for sure :-)
|
| it sounds like "guy felt down in a volcano, but fortunately, he
| had a life vest"
| tialaramex wrote:
| Rather more like "Guy fell over looking into the volcano but
| fortunately there's a metal fence". The most immediate danger
| to you is that you'll drown because radioactive water is
| water and you can't breathe. So the life vest avoids this. In
| contrast volcanic lava absolutely can kill you before you
| drown, no problem.
|
| Yes, radioactivity isn't good. You should not, for example,
| drink this water, or swim in it once a week for good luck.
| But, it isn't magic death fluid, the worker will have been
| decontaminated - destroying clothing, washing skin and so on,
| and the additional exposure means they might get more
| monitoring, but they're probably fine.
| weinzierl wrote:
| In addition to that they increased their likelihood to get
| cancer earlier than they would otherwise. Many things have
| this effect, for example alcohol. In the end everyone get
| cancer eventually, some just die before from other causes.
| lazide wrote:
| Unlikely in this case. Water is amazingly as a shielding
| medium, and unless the water was contaminated (very
| unlikely, as it's easily detected and heavily monitored)
| he likely got lower than background levels while in the
| pool itself.
| fwip wrote:
| The article seems to indicate that the radiation level in
| their hair was notably elevated.
| lazide wrote:
| Unfortunately, it also provided no useful information
| quantifying the statements.
|
| Maybe there is a problem elsewhere, maybe the pool is
| contaminated, maybe the sensor used is very sensitive and
| 300 cpm is not as concerning as it would seem.
|
| It sure would be nice to have actual data, wouldn't it?
| weinzierl wrote:
| The reactor cavity water is usually moderately
| radioactive from activation and small leaks. Not life-
| threatening but certainly a long term health risk,
| especially when ingested. That is why the person was
| advised to seek medical attention.
|
| Regulatory bodies have adopted the LNT (linear no
| threshold) model and for good reasons. Every exposure
| increases your likelihood to get cancer eventually. Many
| things do, such is life, and radiation is one of them.
| lazide wrote:
| It was deactivated and being refueled, so likely
| something leaked somewhere. But that should be a lot more
| than a 'we dunno' if so - it's not like it's not going to
| be clear from isotopic analysis eh? Or hopefully they at
| least have some decent spectrum on it.
|
| And it should show up in realtime monitoring of the
| water, unless they just turned that off.
| yetihehe wrote:
| > If you're concerned about staying within safe radiation
| levels, Ken Jorgustin explains on the Modern Survival Blog
| that it would take 432 days at a CPM of 100 to up your
| chance of getting cancer to odds of 1 in 1,000
|
| > The individual was decontaminated by radiation protection
| personnel but had 300 counts per minute detected in their
| hair.
|
| This event will result in acute hair loss. From shaving
| machine.
| elcritch wrote:
| Unfortunate because for the first time in his life he had
| RAD hair. ;)
| saagarjha wrote:
| I think you would probably explode if you hit lava to be
| honest
| froggit wrote:
| Not sure how fortunate that metal fence would be.
| Apparently those things conduct heat. "Fortunately guy who
| fell in volcano landed on the white hot chain link safety
| fence deep inside and was grilled to death over a span of
| several minutes. His last thoughts were on how lucky he was
| that at least he hadn't fallen in a reactor pool without a
| life vest."
| tialaramex wrote:
| Wait, when the guy falls on the dangerously hot fence,
| why the fuck doesn't anybody pull them away? The nuclear
| reactor pool guy presumably didn't just float there until
| he got the idea to haul himself out, everybody else went
| "Shit! Bob fell into the water, quick help me get him
| out".
| afiori wrote:
| My understanding is that reactor and waste pools are some of
| the least radioactive environments as they are constantly
| monitored for leakage.
| stavros wrote:
| Possibly, but I wouldn't think "least radioactive
| environments in a nuclear reactor" is a low bar. I don't
| know, though.
| lexicality wrote:
| I remember hearing somewhere that the biggest risk from
| swimming in a live reactor's coolant pool would be lead
| poisoning caused by the DoE guards and their lack of a
| sense of humour
| vntok wrote:
| Here: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
|
| > But just to be sure, I got in touch with a friend of
| mine who works at a research reactor, and asked him what
| he thought would happen to you if you tried to swim in
| their radiation containment pool. "In our reactor?" He
| thought about it for a moment. "You'd die pretty quickly,
| before reaching the water, from gunshot wounds."
| adastra22 wrote:
| No you misread. One of the least radioactive areas, full
| stop. It is less radioactive than your house.
| stavros wrote:
| Oh really? Huh, very interesting, thanks.
| adastra22 wrote:
| It's basically due to background radiation and the
| containment shield. The base radiation level within the
| nuclear plant complex is less than outside due to
| shielding, and water is VERY good at soaking up
| radiation. With safety margins considered, the top of the
| containment pool will have less radiation than the cosmic
| rays being blocked by the containment shield.
| trhway wrote:
| My experience so far has been that when people say "full
| stop", it usually makes a lot of sense to fact-check
| further what they said. In this case the notice says his
| hair is 300 counts per minute after decontamination. The
| typical background is under 100.
| iterance wrote:
| Your fact checking was not successful: there is no
| typical background expressed in counts. Background count
| rates vary globally by significant amounts, but
| importantly, they vary by device. Some devices may get a
| measly 10-20 counts per minute in a background, next to
| another device that could get 500. It also matters what
| kind of radiation the device is configured to detect.
|
| At any rate 300 is widely recognizable as not an alarming
| value for a typical contamination detector in a typical
| configuration, but the report is likely slightly
| deficient because it does not specify how the measurement
| was taken. However, even if we accept 100 as the
| background CPM value, 300 on 100 does not represent
| significant contamination in a typical environment (but
| does imply some occurred).
| trhway wrote:
| >but importantly, they vary by device.
|
| Of course it varies for "civilian" devices from EBay.
|
| They put that count into NRC report. It means that it has
| pretty specific calibrated meaning for that regulated
| environment.
|
| >However, even if we accept 100 as the background CPM
| value, 300 on 100 does not represent significant
| contamination in a typical environment (but does imply
| some occurred).
|
| report mentions 300 clearly as something above normal,
| whatever normal is there. And that is after
| decontamination. Clearly the source of contamination -
| the pool - is much higher than 300.
| lazide wrote:
| CPM has no calibrated amount by itself.
| Razengan wrote:
| Reminds me of the "your keyboard is dirtier than your
| asshole" and similar 'myths' that no one would bother to
| verify.
|
| I mean I would rather lick a keyboard than a butthole
| (with exceptions of course)
| mjd wrote:
| I wouldn't lick my own keyboard, but licking my own
| asshole sounds interesting
| ta1243 wrote:
| You'd have to be shockingly flexible
| alluro2 wrote:
| I mean, cats are pretty smart and picky about what they
| do and don't do, and they do it all the time
| sim7c00 wrote:
| they are also very flexible
| jkhdigital wrote:
| You're right, you don't know! When I worked on a nuclear
| aircraft carrier, I learned that the people working down
| in the reactor spaces got significantly less radiation
| exposure than the people working on the flight deck. My
| ship was ported in Japan when the Fukushima disaster
| happened, and we had to abruptly go out to sea because we
| couldn't let the (minimal) fallout contaminate the
| reactor spaces and make it impossible to monitor the
| reactor itself properly.
| perihelions wrote:
| > _"...we had to abruptly go out to sea because we
| couldn't let the (minimal) fallout contaminate the
| reactor spaces and make it impossible to monitor the
| reactor itself properly. "_
|
| There are numerous anecdotes from the USS Reagan that
| contradict that prosaic interpretation (of the reason it
| was abruptly moved),
|
| https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/seven-years-on-
| sai... ( _" 7 Years on, Sailors Exposed to Fukushima
| Radiation Seek Their Day in Court"_ (2018))
|
| E.g.,
|
| _" He was issued iodine tablets--which are used to block
| radioactive iodine, a common byproduct of uranium
| fission, from being absorbed by the thyroid gland--and
| fitted for an NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) suit.
| He was also told not to drink water from the ship's
| desalination system. [...] Torres, the senior petty
| officer, recounted, "One of the scariest things I've
| heard in my career was when the commanding officer came
| over the loudspeaker, and she said, 'We've detected high
| levels of radiation in the drinking water; I'm securing
| all the water.'" That included making showers off
| limits."_
| ch4s3 wrote:
| It's an incredibly high bar. Most places in a reactor are
| required by law to have lower radiation levels than you'd
| be exposed to standing outside in Denver.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| It sure shouldn't be a low bar! People have to work there
| all day.
| Applejinx wrote:
| It's because water blocks radioactivity. It's like the
| opposite of the Fallout games and their radioactive water:
| you would have to swim right down to the radioactive
| material and wrap yourself around it at which point you'd
| basically melt.
| thijson wrote:
| I was reading accounts from the survivors of the atomic
| bombs dropped on Japan. One of the survivors was blown
| out of the house and was stuck neck deep into water.
| Couldn't get free, so had to wait for rescue. They didn't
| get much of any radiation sickness afterwards.
| dtgriscom wrote:
| Water blocks alpha, beta and gamma rays, but the water
| itself can carry radioactive elements, which I'd guess
| was the source of this (relatively minor) contamination.
| layer8 wrote:
| TFA says: "The individual was decontaminated by radiation
| protection personnel but had 300 counts per minute detected
| in their hair. At 1632 EDT they were sent off site to seek
| medical attention."
|
| Apparently they do have concerns.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| 300 counts per minute is nothing, almost
| indistinguishable from standing in a grocery store.
| sponaugle wrote:
| Not only that, but CPM (Counts per min) is measurement
| device specific. Using a very sensitive pancake probe
| will generate much higher CPM than a geiger tube from the
| same source. You have to look at calibrated units (usV/hr
| for example). Of course uSv has it own problems given the
| exposure model.. but better than CPM!
| michaelmrose wrote:
| CPM isn't a actual measure without the service in
| question being specified.
| arcticbull wrote:
| 300 counts per minute is significantly less than you'd
| get from a banana. Wish they'd use uSv though.
| refulgentis wrote:
| 16 year veteran here, might be time to remove the "don't
| say HN is becoming Reddit" from the rules.
|
| Bizarre to see you in gray and all other random kvetching
| up and down the thread not gray.
|
| Well, it's not bizarre. You're fact bound and aren't
| calling people names and intellectually posturing.
|
| You just read the article.
|
| That's no fun!
|
| And I don't feel smarter! The other guy says we can make
| fun of dummies mentioning the life jacket, they don't
| know nuclear!
| kortilla wrote:
| His comment is gray because it's still pearl clutching
| over facts the commenter doesn't even understand. The
| worker was not sent for radiation because 300/min is
| background radiation levels you get from everyday things.
| refulgentis wrote:
| I love when people confidently state what is in someone
| else's head in service of explaining why that someone
| else is "wrong". Talk about telling on yourself. (tl;dr:
| we _do_ know this, but thanks!)
| kelnos wrote:
| I think both "sides" aren't looking great here. On one
| side you have someone quoting the article with a fact
| that doesn't mean what they think it means (the level of
| radiation reported is safe; the person in question is
| being sent for medical attention more for process's sake
| and an overabundance of caution), and the other side is
| being incredibly uncharitable and rude when it comes to
| calling people out for being ignorant of how this stuff
| works.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| > Apparently they do have concerns.
|
| Well yeah. If someone falls in water at work, you get
| them checked out at the hospital. The paltry amount of
| radiation is kind of the least of your worries if there's
| even the smallest risk you got some water in your lungs.
|
| People can drown on dry land from about a tablespoon of
| water getting into their lungs.
| haskellshill wrote:
| > People can drown on dry land from about a tablespoon of
| water getting into their lungs.
|
| Well, I don't think there's such a big risk of that.
| Falling into a pool is something most of us have probably
| done. Being pushed by a friend as a kid for example. The
| risk of drowning is probably pretty comparable to the
| risk from the radiation (negligible).
| quantumcotton wrote:
| I didn't expect this level of ignorance here. Maybe
| reddit but this is crazy.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| Nah mate, you've got it backwards.
|
| Even a tiny amount of water in your lungs is a trip to
| the hospital.
|
| The amount of radiation that guy was exposed to is
| roughly the same as eating a banana, or driving through
| the middle of Aberdeen with your car windows down
| inhaling all the radon off the granite.
| rcruzeiro wrote:
| Nuclear plants follow a strict "as low as reasonably
| achievable" (ALARA) principle. Any intake of reactor
| water or radiation exposure must be reported and
| evaluated no matter how small.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| There was a video about this I saw recently. Indeed, the
| person said the most dangerous risk is drowning.
| sunrunner wrote:
| I thought the main risk was from being shot by the guards
| before you made it to the pool?
| Waterluvian wrote:
| The main risk is getting into a car accident as you
| outrun the cops down the freeway on your way to the
| reactor.
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| I don't know why you're being downvoted.
|
| See https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
|
| "But just to be sure, I got in touch with a friend of
| mine who works at a research reactor, and asked him what
| he thought would happen to you if you tried to swim in
| their radiation containment pool.
|
| "In our reactor?" He thought about it for a moment.
| "You'd die pretty quickly, before reaching the water,
| from gunshot wounds."
| ninju wrote:
| So death by acute lead poisoning :-)
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Hence the life vest.
| MeteorMarc wrote:
| Also, it is fully demineralised water to avoid neutron
| capture.
| AndrewStephens wrote:
| Well it's not demineralised anymore since someone fell
| into it. I wonder if they have to replace the water now.
| SpaceNoodled wrote:
| Nah, just take out the minerals
| djtriptych wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the engineer at the nuclear plant I visited
| in elementary school drank a glass of water out of that
| pool to demonstrate how safe it was.
|
| I hope I'm misremembering that but it's a pretty strong
| memory that totally locked in for me that that water is not
| necessarily dangerous.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| Serious question, as daft as it might sound - do they
| have to chlorinate the water to stop stuff growing in it?
| I'd expect it'd be about "swimming pool" warm so just
| great for all sorts of manky algae growing.
| rcruzeiro wrote:
| The water is borated and heavily purified. You don't want
| stuff growing inside, but at the same time you don't want
| to have chlorinated water slowly corroding the metal
| components.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| I also read in the XKCD thing that it might be up to
| about 50deg so it's probably a bit uncomfortable for most
| algae type things.
|
| I bet there's some good chance of getting wacky
| extremophiles though!
| luckman212 wrote:
| Would you mind sharing a link to "the xkcd thing" if you
| have it?
|
| edit: sorry for being lazy, I scrolled a bit more and
| found it.
| johnisgood wrote:
| https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
| Zacharias030 wrote:
| 50C is terribly hot for a swim.
|
| Hot spring baths usually top out around 42-43C
| lazide wrote:
| Check out this study. Pretty wild!
| [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7760952/]
| gwd wrote:
| I mean, apparently the inventor of lead additive to
| gasoline used to pour the chemical over his hands to
| demonstrate how safe it was -- even though he knew it was
| actually quite toxic. So there are people who will
| knowingly give themselves small doses of poison to keep
| the money flowing.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA&t=604s
| tarruda wrote:
| > dunno if the life vest bit comment of yours was sarcastic,
| but it is a funny remark for sure :-)
|
| It was a quote of the linked article:
|
| "Holtec International, which owns the closed nuclear
| facility, reported the worker was a contractor who was
| wearing all required personal protective equipment, including
| a life vest while working near the pool without a barrier in
| place."
| wrsh07 wrote:
| And it's important because it probably provides limits on
| how deep into the pool they might have fallen
|
| From the linked xkcd in various threads it seems like a
| life vest should keep you in the "safe" zone
|
| However it doesn't actually say how much is safe to drink
| cedilla wrote:
| If you work near water you should be wearing a life vest.
| Especially if it's an area that may be hard to get to or
| where other dangers are around or if you're alone.
| ikari_pl wrote:
| it's actually important - close to the surface, the radiation
| should be mostly all filtered out by the water already.
|
| the deeper you get, the worse for you. I assume the first
| second was critical.
| ants_everywhere wrote:
| to make this point extra extra explicit: a life vest is
| also a "stay very close to the surface" vest. It prevents
| the worker going down like when you jump into a pool.
|
| The usual reason for this is it keeps your mouth from being
| far from the air. In this case it also helps because the
| radioactive stuff is close to the bottom. And exposure
| depends on distance from the bottom.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Anyone working around a large pool of deep water should be
| wearing a personal floatation device.
|
| He was not working in a volcano.
| haskellshill wrote:
| Wow, people are really clueless about how nuclear power
| plants really work. It's really not that dangerous to fall
| into the water.
| nilamo wrote:
| The zeitgeist has been anti-nuclear for so many decades,
| fear pops up around any topic that's at all adjacent to a
| reactor.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Or maybe people just don't that water mitigates radiation
| really well? You can be very pro-nuclear and still be
| concerned about radioactive contamination if you don't
| know that radioactivity is dramatically reduced by just a
| few feet of water.
| sroussey wrote:
| If you're in the water, you may get a few feet less of
| that protection. Particularly if you swim down.
| amarant wrote:
| According to Randall Munroe, you'd actually experience
| less radiation about a metre under the water in a spent
| fuel pool then you do walking down the street.
|
| https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
|
| On a tangent, I kinda love the fact that I've learned
| more about nuclear physics, orbital mechanics, and
| relativistic speeds from a poorly drawn webcomic than I
| have from any other source. (Ok KSP might actually have
| xkcd beat on orbital mechanics)
| bariumbitmap wrote:
| Why not both? Kerbal Space Program is XKCD approved:
|
| https://xkcd.com/1356/
| causality0 wrote:
| It made me very sad when he stopped regularly writing
| those.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Probably is if you don't have a life vest.
| fwipsy wrote:
| Hey, no need to be condescending. Some people just haven't
| read [the xkcd.](https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/)
| jopsen wrote:
| Life vest suddenly seems very relevant.
| tremon wrote:
| Just make sure the life vest is made of kevlar.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Or you have an employee badge.
| yujzgzc wrote:
| This is such a better response than "wow some people
| really are stoopid"
| aendruk wrote:
| To be fair, you don't have to be stupid to be clueless.
| We're all clueless about plenty of things.
| haskellshill wrote:
| I mean, if you actually think there's a pool of "lava"
| that's dangerously radioactive at the surface, while
| people are walking right next to it, you might be a bit
| "stoopid". The whole reason water is used is that it
| shields from radioactivity pretty well
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Why would the average person know this about the water
| used in nuclear reactors?
|
| There are also plenty of jobs where people are in close
| proximity to insanely hot/dangerous liquids.
| latexr wrote:
| Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFRUL7vKdU8
| xoxxala wrote:
| I found the "Nuclear Engineer reacts to XKCD" version of
| this video pretty interesting, too. Adds a little more
| context.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diHG9W27XeU
| datahack wrote:
| I feel like you're citing the primary source material for
| the vast majority of us. Like, "let me find the thing
| that original taught me how to think about radiation
| pools. Ah yes, this xkcd. Yep, here's the manual."
| wildylion wrote:
| Might be. If the reactor was recently defueled, especially,
| might there be more junk floating in the water?
|
| If said junk was alpha- or beta-emitting, it could be
| enough of a danger for cancer.
| loa_in_ wrote:
| It almost sounds plausible but it's not. All fuel is
| extremely heavy elements that in still water falls down
| and deposits on the bottom.
| fsh wrote:
| The fuel is (almost) harmless, it's the fission products
| that make reactors dangerous. Many of those are water-
| soluble. Of course the fuel elements should be encased,
| but drinking pool water is probably not a great idea
| anyway.
| refulgentis wrote:
| Few fun riffs for a Sunday morning:
|
| Wow, people are really clueless about how nuclear power
| plants really work. They literally wrote up a safety report
| and transported them off-site.
|
| Wow, people are really clueless about how to avoid reacting
| angrily. It's funny to append "they were wearing a life
| vest" to "they had a nuclear safety accident"
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| What, "morning", how dare you! It's late afternoon
| shading towards early evening here!
|
| (Am I doing it right yet?)
| refulgentis wrote:
| It's literally 11:59 AM, Hieronymus. People don't get how
| time works. I'm _the_ observer of spacetime!
| EA-3167 wrote:
| You know the article that people love around around here,
| 'Reality Has A Surprising Amount of Detail'... well it
| does, and most people don't realize how little of it
| they're even aware of.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Doesn't it depend on how far they sink? I'm pretty sure
| xkcd did a comic on this. Oh, it's a video, here it is:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFRUL7vKdU8
|
| Edit: ok, I'm probably the fiftieth person to point this
| out. It's still a good video.
| destitude wrote:
| Did you read the report? Doesn't sound like it was safe for
| him.
| dekhn wrote:
| A lot of us grew up in the time of 3 Mile Island and
| Chernobyl. Combined with a lot of media about
| radioactivity's dangers
| (https://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/06/nyregion/babies-teeth-
| and...). I think that has strongly affected people's
| perception of risk.
|
| I used to work at UC Berkeley, and one of the buildings on
| campus previously held a research nuclear reactor
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Research_Reactor).
| There's a sign there now "Nuclear Free Zone";
| (https://www.dailycal.org/archives/the-berkeley-nuclear-
| free-...).
|
| Note that they did have to do extensive decontamination on
| Gilman Hall (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formerly_Utilize
| d_Sites_Remedi...) where plutonium was first isolated.
| quantumcotton wrote:
| As a person who knows way too much about way too many
| things. I am fully aware of this myself, however, the
| headline was shifted in a way that makes you perceive
| there's a problem caused by said person falling into water.
| So yes, logic tells you no problem but haven't recognition
| tells you they're trying to announce a problem. At the same
| time there was no problem.
| easterncalculus wrote:
| Most likely including OP
| dang wrote:
| Can you please make your substantive points without putting
| others down?
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&so
| r...
| zamalek wrote:
| Your radiation exposure next to a coal power plant (thorium
| in ash) is significantly higher than a nuclear power plant
| (background radiation). I imagine this is much the same.
| slicktux wrote:
| 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!
| feminintendo wrote:
| This is not true at all. I have personally looked into a
| reactor pool. I remember thinking how easy it would be to
| literally just jump in. I mean, I'd trip about a thousand
| alarms and probably end up in prison, but....
| hexfish wrote:
| I second this. We went to one on a school trip and the
| intrusive thoughts were very strong that day.
| Iulioh wrote:
| Least harmful call of the void there is
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| was this place one of those who suffered firings as a result of
| the government shutdown? I believe at least 1,000 employs at
| nuclear facilities have been fired.
| pembrook wrote:
| 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.
| gnarlouse wrote:
| Really puts it into perspective
| kevincox wrote:
| This is enlightening chart. Only Solar beats nuclear in
| deaths/Wh of energy. Even wind power results in more deaths.
| Additionally this uses very pessimistic numbers for large
| nuclear incidents and doesn't count thinks like deaths and
| health complications due to pollution and emitted radiation
| from fossil-fuel power sources (which emit way more radiation
| than nuclear power).
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...
| BirAdam wrote:
| If my childhood taught me anything, it's that there's about to be
| an awesome superhero.
| satisfice wrote:
| A spider will bite this guy and get the powers of a human.
| sim7c00 wrote:
| his super power will be misunderstanding other spiders and
| prosecuting them for their otherness -_-
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Where is Jimmy Carter when we need him? And Rodney Dangerfield
| to explain how big Jimmy Carter is.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/LiveFromNewYork/comments/1bh2edu/th...
| gfalcao wrote:
| same thought here
| escapecharacter wrote:
| If one falls into a tank like this, what steps are required to
| guarantee likelihood of developing powers?
| robviren wrote:
| 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.
| smilespray wrote:
| I've lived through three major nuclear incidents, and what they
| had in common, regardless of the political systems of the US,
| The Soviet Union or Japan, was not the transparency, it was the
| lying. It started _immediately_ after each incident.
|
| I'm essentially pro-nuclear, I just don't trust people who run
| it.
| consp wrote:
| You describe incidents which become political. At some point
| the normal rules are being ignored by those on the top of the
| information food chain. That says nothing about the rules of
| the game, but does say a lot about the people involved.
| smilespray wrote:
| The rule-ignoring and the lying started inside the plants
| before anybody outside got involved. Then it just spread
| like cancer.
| robviren wrote:
| Totally valid perspective. I only became part of the industry
| _after_ Fukushima. I only knew an industry by its disasters.
| I will say, having gone through the training programs we
| studied the nuclear incidents and spent a year in training
| before going to the plants. I just don 't see parallel
| experiences looking back like that. The people in nuclear (at
| least from what I saw) want the industry to be safe and
| successful.
| 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
| Can you recommend a book or two in order to learn about that
| culture? IMO we could use more of it in AI.
| robviren wrote:
| I found strong parallels between tech safety and nuclear
| safety.
|
| https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML0534/ML053410342.pdf
|
| NRC is a good place to start. They have been at trying to
| prevent tech from hurting people for awhile.
| amarant wrote:
| Mandatory xkcd: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
| PhoenixFlame101 wrote:
| Video format if anyone prefers it: https://youtu.be/EFRUL7vKdU8
| almosthere wrote:
| Is he going to die no matter what or is this survivable?
| jasongill wrote:
| Ultimately, yes; he will die no matter what.
| almosthere wrote:
| As you get older this pedantry gets really tiring.
| brongondwana wrote:
| The good news is, you have less time to be annoyed by it
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Personally, my belief in my own immortality only increases
| the older I get. Yes, Socrates died, but he clearly wasn't
| smart if he died. Me, on the other hand? I'm batting a
| thousand.
| yard2010 wrote:
| Would it kill you? Well, ultimately yes..
| lgas wrote:
| Not necessarily. Could get hit by a car later the same
| day.
| dooglius wrote:
| There is a deeper point here, not just pedantry. The point
| is that harm is a spectrum not a binary and one cannot
| meaningfully answer a question that assumes a binary.
| lwhi wrote:
| Yes, there is a such a thing as a bad question after all.
| kmbfjr wrote:
| (Tired quip "you must be new here")
|
| Yes, it is tiring. In this case, not really because it is
| at least for me, humorous in a Doc Martin sort of way. But
| elsewhere and on places like Reddit where the pedantry is
| often at best unjustified and at worst, wrong, it has made
| me spend less time on the sites.
| hshdhdhehd wrote:
| Unprovable.
| thayne wrote:
| I'm not an expert but it definitely doesn't sound like an
| immediate threat to his life.
| hunterpayne wrote:
| He will be fine. He might not still have his job in a few
| months but other that, he will be fine. 300 CPM isn't even
| close to dangerous. You get a higher dose every time you fly in
| an airplane, or go to La Paz, Bolivia.
| cma wrote:
| > They ingested some amount of cavity water
|
| Isn't it much worse internally than hitting your outer skin?
| orwin wrote:
| Yes, but: depends on what he ingested. Deuterium/tritium
| cannot emit Alpha particles, the ones blocked by your
| outer/dead skin (also they're an order of magnitude more
| dangerous than the other at equivalent grey), so he's fine
| in that way (unless there is more in the pool, but that
| would be a bigger issue).
|
| The issue with ingesting deuterium/tritium is that the dose
| will now have to be calculated/estimated per organ, and
| while I don't remember exactly how it's done, it's more
| complex than calculating the mSv he took (I can't give you
| more details, I'm not competent, I've observed a
| radiologist a week my bachelor year to decide which master
| I would do, I'm now working in software which should tell
| you everything)
| kevincox wrote:
| According to https://www.mlive.com/news/2025/10/michigan-
| nuclear-plant-wo... he returned to work the next day
| (presumably at the nuclear reactor) and only suffered minor
| injuries due to the fall.
| satisfice wrote:
| No more horseplay around the reactor!
| IngvarLynn wrote:
| relevant xkcd not:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreev_Bay_nuclear_accident#A...
| arthurcolle wrote:
| 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.
| ramchip wrote:
| From: https://www.vice.com/en/article/a-nuclear-plant-worker-
| fell-...
|
| > According to federal reports, the contractor ingested some of
| the reactor water before being yanked out, scrubbed down, and
| checked for radiation. They walked away with only minor
| injuries and about 300 counts per minute of radiation detected
| in their hair.
|
| > That sounds like a lot, but apparently it isn't terribly
| serious. He underwent a decontamination scrubdown and was back
| on the job by Wednesday.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| Litvinenko had about 10 MBq in his body and died in 3 weeks.
|
| This might be 500+ MBq (0.5 GBq). Yeah it's a different
| isotope, but clearly not a "non-emergency"
|
| EDIT: (after 1 hr) - Litvinenko dose was 4GBq - I was wrong by
| 3 orders of magnitude. My bad
| orwin wrote:
| External contamination is not comparable to internal, at all.
| Bq is a terrible unit to understand radioactive danger. Doses
| are usually detected in Grey, then converted into Sievert
| because Grey didn't take into account the difference between
| Alpha radiation and the others. And even then, when someone
| is truly contaminated, we calculate effective dose per organ.
|
| The poor guy who fell in the pool probably didn't take any
| Alpha ray, wasn't taking all the radiation on a specific
| place, and while in my country we would calculate the dose he
| took before sending him back to work, he would probably work
| again in the same nuclear sector (this isn't the case for
| anyone, I know someone who dive to get the
| radioactive/explosive/poisonous trash we put in the water in
| the 50s until the 90s, he now cannot work on any radioactive
| trash.)
| malfist wrote:
| Can you quantify why you're better qualified to assess risk
| from this brief report than the nuclear experts on site that
| know the full picture?
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Quantify? What kind of number would satisfy your request?
| arthurcolle wrote:
| I learned a few things from my father along the way. I can
| share my notes if you'd like
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Coll%C3%A9?wprov=sfti1
| malfist wrote:
| I'm sure your father is a very accomplished gentleman. But
| I was asking why your armchair analysis is better than the
| experts who actually know what happened here?
| arthurcolle wrote:
| I maintain the complete archive of every publication my
| father did from 1969 to 2019 and continue to update the
| archive based on new publications. I use the data to
| train Nuclear Radiochemistry AI Agents and while I do not
| have my father's credentials, I actively use this dataset
| to learn about his field, and from my limited knowledge
| here I felt the need to comment. After all, what is
| skepticism if we can't share and teach each other what we
| know, right?
|
| https://github.com/arthurcolle/Ronald-Colle-Papers
|
| I love how punchy you are! And the astronomy photos. Take
| care :)
| C6JEsQeQa5fCjE wrote:
| > I use the data to train Nuclear Radiochemistry AI
| Agents and [...]
|
| As someone who is not involved in this ongoing
| discussion, I have to just say that invoking LLM agents
| when asked for credentials is not going to go in your
| favor.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| My use case for data that exists that is pre-AI
| scientifically vetted work is completely divorced from
| the specifics of this conversation actually. If I want to
| do paper-mache sculptures with printouts of these papers,
| and I still commented on this post, would that be better
| or worse for you, here?
|
| I was just sharing background. I want to make good models
| that can help scientists do work. Your personal feelings
| about LLMs and their capabilities feels quite distinct
| from the focus on this post, and the chain of comments
| that have led us here.
| not_kurt_godel wrote:
| So you don't have the necessary credentials, and you
| still wouldn't be qualified to comment even if you did
| have them unless you had access to the internal data. But
| no worries, I'm sure you'd be OK getting surgery from a
| surgeon's son who never went to medical school nor read
| your chart.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| But I am not doing surgery. I am expressing skepticism at
| the "oh no it's all fine" from literally everyone
| reporting on this story
| not_kurt_godel wrote:
| Yep you know better than the people who have the
| credentials you don't and the access to internal data you
| don't. I don't see what's holding you back from doing
| surgery, qualifications and context are no barrier to the
| application of your self-imagined expertise.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| I don't claim to know better. But restarting a $1.5B
| plant after 2 years of inactivity and having a worker
| fall into a vat of radioactive water and still being at
| 300 CPM after a decontamination procedure is not normal.
| not_kurt_godel wrote:
| That'd be a very interesting statement if you were
| qualified to make it
| lijok wrote:
| What makes one qualified to make a statement?
|
| Are you qualified to make the statement I'm replying to?
| not_kurt_godel wrote:
| In technical fields: Accredited formal education,
| professional certification(s), and/or recognition from
| other experts in the field who have the same.
| lijok wrote:
| How do I know you're qualified to make that statement?
| not_kurt_godel wrote:
| If I'm not, then we're not grounded in the same
| consensus-driven objective reality, making this
| conversation meaningless, and therefore not worth your
| time to reply further.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Phrases such as massive red flag and bureaucratic
| nonsense were claims you knew better.
|
| Who claimed the event was normal? A worker falling in non
| contaminated water would not be normal. Many things are
| bot normal and not emergencies. False dichotomy and straw
| man are logical fallacies.
|
| Were the plant cost and status meant to support your
| claim 300 counts per minute was a red flag? They appeared
| irrelevant.
| danaris wrote:
| > I don't claim to know better.
|
| You very much do, if you're calling into question the
| statements in the article that it's fine.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| You're being unnecessarily attacked for what is largely a
| casual forum where people make casual comments and
| speculation all of the time.
|
| Further, your reasoning is biased towards safety (rather
| than risk), which seems completely sane.
| tomcam wrote:
| Agreed. These violent reactions aren't unusual for HN but
| they are unnecessary and acutely disappointing.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Skepticism and sarcasm are not violence.
| K0balt wrote:
| Off topic, but the idea that the "violence" of ideas,
| where the only thing in play is your point of view, is
| somehow equatable to physical violence, where physical
| integrity is at risk, is one of the least endearing
| features of the 21st century so far.
|
| I cannot overstate how dangerous to human prosperity this
| false equivalence is. It is a first-tier ideological
| scourge that we entertain at great peril both to critical
| thought and the notion of objective truth itself.
|
| On the other hand, it's an excellent proxy to clarify
| that an idea, position, or sometimes even an entire
| ideology or its sycophant exist for entertainment
| purposes only and must not, on their own merits, be taken
| seriously.
|
| Are we really so isolated from the brutality of nature to
| think that the inconvenient beating of a butterfly's
| wings is the same category of experience as being
| disemboweled and eaten alive by a hungry beast?
|
| Or is it that the whole ideological sham of the violence
| of ideas is merely a cowardice, a poverty of ingenuity, a
| plea for clemency by virtue of infantilism?
|
| The pen, or the thought given flight, is mightier than
| the sword.
|
| That does not make an idea a sword. It is in character ,
| spirit, reach, and endurance a very different type of
| thing. A sword can be forged from an idea, but an idea
| will never spring forth from a blade.
|
| Hell in a hand basket, get off my lawn, and uphill both
| ways to school. Lol.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/07/why
| -it...
| lukan wrote:
| I would take the advice of a surgeons son, who is also
| somewhat active in the field, that something sounds fishy
| about a operation, to further look into it. That is very
| different from letting him perform the surgery.
|
| There is incentive to play down accidents. No idea what
| happened here, I actually rather think it recived
| publicity because falling into a nuclear reactor pool
| sounds way more dramatic than it is, but ... not my area.
| Still was happy to get arthurcolle's input.
| not_kurt_godel wrote:
| There is also incentive for people to inflate their sense
| of importance by weighing in on topics they're not
| qualified on, especially if it's motivated by a sense of
| familial pride. You can see elsewhere on this thread that
| arthurcolle self-admits a lack of familiarity with basic
| interpretation of CPM.
|
| Misinformation, whether ill-intentioned or not, does real
| and tangible harm to our society. Misinformation about
| the supposed dangers of nuclear power, as arthurcolle is
| spreading, are especially harmful because they form the
| foundation are the biggest obstacle to safe, clean,
| cheap, and abundant energy that could radically improve
| our lives at the systemic level.
| aunty_helen wrote:
| > Colle and his collaborators have maintained, expanded and
| improved radioactivity measurement standards...
|
| Story checks out. I think this would pass.
| kbar13 wrote:
| LMFAOOOOOO insufferable
| tgtweak wrote:
| 300CPM above background is considered very low - likely why
| they classified this as non-emergency - the only reason it
| was reported was per NRC cfr that states any time there is
| transportation of a radioactively contained person offsite,
| it must be notified.
|
| For reference, in Canada, that is considered trace
| contamination and not dose. You would experience 300-800 CPM
| on a commercial airliner during the entirety of your flight,
| for comparison.
|
| edit: adding to this that the site in question, Palisades, is
| shut-down and is under decommissioning and was not operating
| at the time - so while the water would have had some
| radioactivity due to exposure to the formerly active core, it
| was not like falling into an operating reactor or into
| moderating heavy water... also something that cannot happen
| with a pressurized reactor such as this one.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| I thought 50-130 CPM above background was considered trace
| exposure. But yeah I didn't realize it was a decommissioned
| core... idk there are so many red flags in this story.
|
| EDIT: 300-600 CPM above background radiation levels is for
| EXTERNAL environmental monitoring, not for POST-
| DECONTAMINATION readings on a contaminated person.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| A CPM value means nothing without additional context. Counts
| vary based on detector type and size, radiation type, energy,
| distance and geometry, all sorts of things. They're not
| comparable except in identical contexts.
|
| This is why the Sievert exists as a unit.
|
| As a general rule, falling into a reactor pool is probably
| fine, as long as you don't reach the bottom. (But please don't
| try it.)
|
| There's even an XKCD "What if" about it. https://what-
| if.xkcd.com/29/
| arthurcolle wrote:
| Thank you for the followup (familiar with the XKCD)
|
| Dumb question from a true non-expert:
|
| So CPM varies with all those factors you mention, but
| wouldn't the site HP team know exactly what detector they
| used, the geometry, distance, etc.? They could convert to
| dose if they wanted, right?
|
| Why report the ambiguous "300 CPM" instead of an actual dose
| estimate in mSv/mSv? Seems like that would be more useful for
| any medical team, any set of potential regulators or
| regulatory bodies as well as just general public
| understanding (drawing on my father's work here as he always
| emphasized the tension between "public fears radiation
| unnecessarily" and "industry safety protocols are
| inconsistent")
|
| Follow-up: Is there any legitimate reason to report CPM
| instead of dose after a contamination event? Or does staying
| with CPM keep things conveniently vague? Because from my
| limited understanding, if they did a proper survey, they have
| everything needed to calculate dose.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| I would imagine the on-site team would know, yes. I don't
| know why the report only gives a measurement in CPM, but
| just because the person was sent off-site doesn't mean the
| levels were dangerous. Thresholds at nuclear facilities
| tend to be very low for safety.
|
| The USNRC is currently not operating normally due to the
| government shutdown. Perhaps that has something to do with
| it.
| beeflet wrote:
| >Is there any legitimate reason to report CPM instead of
| dose after a contamination event?
|
| Basically, the procedures for certain environments differ.
| If you want to gather dosage data, you use a dosimeter. If
| you want a binary Yes/No method of detecting contamination,
| you use a geiger counter and determine if the count rate is
| above a certain range (depending on background radiation
| and other factors).
|
| The 300CPM metric just indicates whether they're clean or
| not after they've been scrubbed down. It doesn't measure
| the dose they took.
| godelski wrote:
| > Why report the ambiguous "300 CPM" instead of an actual
| dose estimate in mSv/mSv?
|
| It is a technical document. It is meant to communicate
| between experts, not to the public. > Is
| there any legitimate reason to report CPM instead of dose
| after a contamination event?
|
| It's not nefarious, it is the measurement that they had.
| CPM is an easier measurement to get. And keep in mind that
| these notices are just a small part of the communication
| going on. They're meant to be brief.
|
| To get the actual effective dosage you'll need a lot more
| information _and_ calculations. The CPM can give you a
| decent estimate, if you already know context, but it is
| meaningless if you don 't. So to an expert in that space
| it's a good quick estimate, but to an average person it
| isn't (even to above average people).
|
| In context is also being used as a stepping stone for quick
| evaluation. They sent the guy to the hospital and he'll get
| a better estimate of dosage there. I'm sure they also were
| doing those calculations prior to sending him out. It may
| just be customary to use CPM units. That part I don't know.
| Here's the page they reference though[0] (there's only a
| single (xii) so easy to find).
|
| [0] https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-
| collections/cfr/part050/p...
|
| [disclosure] I have training in nuclear physics, including
| in radiation dosages (I worked on developing shielding
| materials), but I have not worked on a reactor (though I've
| seen reactors and Cherenkov Radiation :) so the customs of
| the bureaucracy are beyond my wheelhouse. But from my
| experience I'm not surprised by this. I would expect a lot
| more documentation and accurate measurements are being
| passed through other channels.
| grey413 wrote:
| Looking at these bulletins, they appear to be quick
| summaries of pretty much any nuclear related incident
| that happens in the US, no matter how minor. I would
| assume that these are mostly intended for public
| transparency, and as for a quick reference point for
| regulatory action. Introductory slide on a PowerPoint
| sort of material.
|
| In that context, I'd guess that the 300 CPM figure is
| just a signpost that says "we measured the worker to make
| sure that he was safe to release to a hospital."
| godelski wrote:
| I think you're over interpreting. Publicly available
| doesn't mean "for the general public"
|
| Here, take METAR as an example. This is broadcast on open
| airwaves and every pilot can read this. Here's the latest
| one from KSFO[0] METAR KSFO 260756Z
| 29004KT 10SM SCT012 BKN042 16/14 A3007 RMK AO2 SLP183
| T01610139 401890133
|
| Is this public? Yes
|
| Is the information intended to be given out to the public
| _in a manner in which the general public can interpret_?
| No. It 's encoded lol. But you can hear that on the radio
| and if you're trained (could go to a public library to
| train yourself) and yeah it makes sense. It is
| specifically intended to be concise and communicate only
| _the absolute minimum_ amount of _necessary_ information.
|
| For another example, look at arXiv. Is it public? Yes.
| Are the papers published there written for the general
| public? No. They are written for peers.
|
| So yes, it is "public transparency", but not for
| transparency to people who aren't train in nuclear
| physics. (Which is what I previously said)
|
| Don't confuse "public" with "for you"
|
| [0] https://aviationweather.gov/data/metar/?ids=KSFO
| yard2010 wrote:
| From the what if:
|
| > On August 31st, 2010, a diver was servicing the spent fuel
| pool at the Leibstadt nuclear reactor in Switzerland. He
| spotted an unidentified length of tubing on the bottom of the
| pool and radioed his supervisor to ask what to do. He was
| told to put it in his tool basket, which he did. Due to
| bubble noise in the pool, he didn't hear his radiation alarm.
|
| When the tool basket was lifted from the water, the room's
| radiation alarms went off. The basket was dropped back in the
| water and the diver left the pool. The diver's dosimeter
| badges showed that he'd received a higher-than-normal whole-
| body dose, and the dose in his right hand was extremely high.
|
| The object turned out to be protective tubing from a
| radiation monitor in the reactor core, made highly
| radioactive by neutron flux. It had been accidentally sheared
| off while a capsule was being closed in 2006. It sank to a
| remote corner of the pool floor, where it sat unnoticed for
| four years.
|
| The tubing was so radioactive that if he'd tucked it into a
| tool belt or shoulder bag, where it sat close to his body, he
| could've been killed. As it was, the water protected him, and
| only his hand--a body part more resistant to radiation than
| the delicate internal organs--received a heavy dose
|
| I love this book. Randall is such a gifted artist
| cornonthecobra wrote:
| One of my favourite bits (and a fine example of Randall's
| sublime humour), comes right at the end:
|
| But just to be sure, I got in touch with a friend of mine
| who works at a research reactor, and asked him what he
| thought would happen to you if you tried to swim in their
| radiation containment pool.
|
| "In our reactor?" He thought about it for a moment. "You'd
| die pretty quickly, before reaching the water, from gunshot
| wounds."
| godelski wrote:
| > A CPM value means nothing without additional context
|
| Here to confirm this. If you're googling "CPM" you'll find
| charts that say different things. That's why you need to read
| carefully. Better, just chill, it is okay that you don't
| know. It's nuclear physics. It's not a subject you're
| expected to know about.
|
| For CPM, what matters is "CPM of <WHAT>"
|
| CPM just tells you the number of particle detection. It _does
| not_ tell you the particle type (e.g. alpha, beta, gamma) nor
| the energy level (i.e. eV). Without context, it is
| meaningless.
|
| As an example, I can confidently say you are getting over
| 100bn CPM right now. The reason it doesn't matter is that
| this is neutrinos and they're not interacting with you[0].
| 1CPM or 1e20CPM, who cares. Conversely, 1 CPM can be deadly.
| You definitely don't want to be hit by a single ReV (10^27)
| proton (good luck producing that though). Context matters.
| > This is why the Sievert exists as a unit.
|
| Which still needs context.
|
| Sievert is joule per kilogram. So energy divided per mass,
| much like pressure is force over area. But determining
| biological impact still takes interpretation. You have weight
| factors by particle types (e.g. alpha = 2x beta) and there is
| also weighting factor for internal/external dose and
| locations like soft tissue (e.g. higher weighting for dose at
| throat vs dose at hands).
|
| This is why it is incredibly important to use caution when
| interpreting radiation values. If you don't have training in
| this it is incredibly easy to unknowingly make major errors.
| The little details can dramatically change the outcome.
| _Context is critical_.
|
| I'm not here to tell you how to actually do the calculation
| (you'll need a lot more info), I'm here to tell you that it's
| not easy and you're likely doing it wrong. The experts are
| not dumb. You're just missing context and a first order
| approximation is nowhere near enough for an accurate
| conclusion. It's nuclear physics lol
|
| It shouldn't need be said, but nuclear physics is, in fact,
| complicated.
|
| [0] https://neutrinos.fnal.gov/faqs/
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| > [Y]ou are getting over 100bn CPM right now. The reason it
| doesn't matter is that this is neutrinos and they're not
| interacting with you.
|
| I mean, if you actually had a neutrino detector that
| produced 10e10 CPM over your cross-section, then it would
| matter for you, because particle physicists would kidnap
| you to learn the secret :)
| godelski wrote:
| Honestly, the military would probably come after you
| first. Or maybe an oil company? Frankly because if you
| could detect neutrinos at that resolution you would be
| able to produce a really good mapping of... just about
| anything. From the inside of the Earth to the inside of a
| secret military facility on the opposite side of the
| planet. Not to mention you've also invented a
| communication device that is essentially unjammable[0].
|
| Sufficient to say that you'd be _very_ popular, but in
| probably the least fun way possible.
|
| [0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.2847
| jacquesm wrote:
| It would be a very up-close-and-personal variation of the
| resource curse.
| dudeinjapan wrote:
| This is exactly why no one can know my alter-ego is...
| Neutrino Man.
| hunterpayne wrote:
| CPM is a measure of rate, GBq is a total amount. And 300 CPM is
| basically nothing. People live their entire lives in places
| where the natural background radiation is higher than that with
| no increased chance of cancer.
| kragen wrote:
| GBq is also a measure of rate; it's a billion decays per
| second.
| Someone wrote:
| > The non-emergency classification is bureaucratic nonsense
|
| FTA: "This is an eight-hour notification, non-emergency, for
| the transportation of a contaminated person offsite"
|
| I read that as that the "non-emergency" classification isn't
| for the victim or the "fell into a nuclear reactor pool", but
| for the effects on those outside the facility of sending the
| victim off site.
| raggi wrote:
| There is no circulation in hair, hair is dead, and it is
| produced slowly. Nothing about your commentary passes basic
| scrutiny.
| beowulfey wrote:
| Unless I'm misinterpreting what you mean, I believe if it was
| reflected in the hair in the immediate aftermath, it wouldn't
| reflect internal circulation because hair does not grow that
| fast. It would have been from exposure to the pool rather than
| any amount ingested.
| harrall wrote:
| 300 CPM on its own is both meaningless and not high.
|
| CPM is a raw stat from the sensor. There's many different
| designs of dosimeters and they all read differently so you have
| to ask "what brand and model did you use?" You then apply a
| function to the data to normalize it into a real unit.
|
| But CPM is the cool thing that makes the click-click-click
| sound. (The absolute rate of clicks also is not useful.)
| dudidn wrote:
| "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
| dlcarrier wrote:
| That happens all the time; it's only news when something
| unusual happens.
| DoctorOetker wrote:
| 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.
| seb1204 wrote:
| I thought this as well but given some other comments the
| measures numbers are open to interpretation/ spread. Also it
| could be considered a violation of the person's body if done
| without his consent.
| DoctorOetker wrote:
| and one could argue that showering without consent is also a
| violation of the person's body... consider an accident where
| a person is actually super hot with radioactive
| contamination, does the person have the right to exit the
| facility without shower and spread the radioactive
| particulates at will?
|
| the thing is that this type of "violation" can easily be
| prevented by including the obligatory showering or shaving as
| part of the contract, so either they consent or they didn't
| end up in a position where they can be exposed to radioactive
| matter.
|
| So this can not explain why the hair wasn't shaved.
| loeg wrote:
| Dude might prefer to keep his hair? Given the low exposure
| amount.
| qwertytyyuu wrote:
| I can't help but be reminded of relevant xkcd^{TM} https://what-
| if.xkcd.com/29/
| JackAcid wrote:
| Toxic Avenger remake.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| 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?
| chistev wrote:
| Dude about to have superpowers and go after the government
| sebmellen wrote:
| 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.
| trenchpilgrim wrote:
| That blog post is about the spent fuel pool. The link is about
| the reactor cavity.
| sebmellen wrote:
| Wouldn't the same principles apply?
| aakkaakk wrote:
| Not bad, not terrible.
| tzot wrote:
| Did you mean "not great, not terrible" or was the change
| deliberate?
| mobeigi wrote:
| 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.
| Someone wrote:
| FTA: _"This is an eight-hour notification, non-emergency, for
| the transportation of a contaminated person offsite"_
|
| = the "non-emergency" classification isn't about the "fell into
| a nuclear reactor pool", but about sending the victim off site.
| drysart wrote:
| I can guarantee you there will be a proper investigation and
| steps taken to avoid this in the future. The non-emergency
| classification here applies solely to the notification that the
| contamination was transported off-site. Not to the fact that
| the incident occurred. _Every_ accidental incident that occurs
| within the controlled area of a nuclear facility is
| investigated and evaluated for necessary policy changes.
|
| And the reason the contamination transport off-site was
| classified as non-emergency was because even though the amount
| of radiation detected on the guy is less than he'd have gotten
| from flying in an airplane; nuclear safety standards are so
| unbelievably rigorous and strict that even that small of an
| incident needs to be reported; even if it presents absolutely
| no danger to anyone anywhere (not even the guy that was
| contaminated) and hence is classified as a non-emergency
| notification.
| kevincox wrote:
| > Plant officials today confirmed the worker sustained minor
| injuries from the fall and has already returned to work. -
| https://www.mlive.com/news/2025/10/michigan-nuclear-plant-wo...
|
| They returned to work the next day with minor injuries due to
| the fall. It doesn't sound like it was an emergency to me.
| defraudbah wrote:
| and so hulk was born
| ggm wrote:
| Does the operator go to court for OH&S breaches?
| unglaublich wrote:
| 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.
| dubbel wrote:
| I loce their videos, too, but as far as I know the current US
| administration will shut them down at the end of this year. [0]
| [1]
|
| But just now I read that a (sharply reduced) budget had passed
| the house? [2] does anyone know what the current state is?
|
| [0]: https://www.csb.gov/assets/1/6/csb_cj_2026.pdf
|
| [1]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/only-federal-agency-
| that-i...
|
| [2]:
| https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/27090-house...
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| That's from July, and it says a committee has approved a
| specific line item to be put into the budget that would
| eventually be voted on.
| system2 wrote:
| The rest of the event reports are also very active. Reactor sites
| are fun places to work.
| rurban wrote:
| Palisades was closed down 2022, but just reopened recently at
| August 27, 2025.
|
| Hair contaminated
| lavela wrote:
| These are quite a few reports for one day for a technology we
| purportedly have under full control, nothing to worry.
| rvrs wrote:
| Did a coal miner write this comment?
| rs_rs_rs_rs_rs wrote:
| Worse, an environmentalist.
| lavela wrote:
| Miner vs. straw man, who wins? :o)
| drysart wrote:
| Which do you consider as being under better control: a
| technology that we exhaustively create reports on even in the
| face of incidents like this where the only real chance of harm
| was that the guy couldn't swim and might have drowned; or a
| technology where we don't report on anything at all whatsoever
| and thus have no idea what's actually going on?
|
| Reports don't mean danger, and they don't mean lack of control.
| Reports are information.
| lavela wrote:
| Of the eight reports I only see one that relates to a guy
| being able to swim or not (and I suspect the same is true for
| the estimated 1400 reports so far this year). Also having
| transparency is obviously good and I don't understand what
| you want to prove with arguing that a worse situation would
| be worse. It clearly would be worse.
|
| I'm also not totally against nuclear, in case you are
| suspecting that. I do think though, that we as a society
| aren't at the point where we have the ability to completely
| control such technology, contrary to what proponents of much
| higher utilization of nuclear like to claim. Reports of fuses
| seemingly without failover or stolen equipment seem to
| support that argument.
| Cheezmeister wrote:
| 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.
| lijok wrote:
| Guys slow down, you're gonna hug xkcd to death
| ByteDrifter wrote:
| Incidents like this show that "nuclear safety" is as much
| cultural as technical. Even the best systems fail when people and
| organizations stop treating the environment with the respect it
| demands.
| pembrook wrote:
| This harmless incident shows us nothing aside from why nuclear
| is so expensive.
|
| There is essentially zero risk to the operation of the plant
| (or this worker!) from such an event.
|
| Imagine if oil and gas facilities were required for any worker
| fall to have federal government workers visit onsite, draft a
| report for review, have it examined by expensive niche lawyers
| with rounds of revisions, and then have it published it
| publicly.
|
| This is just a silly example of the hysterical safety-ism
| involving anything nuclear-related in the US.
|
| Yes, working in any job related to energy carries risks. Just
| ask a roughneck, lineman, or wind turbine installer.
| throw-10-13 wrote:
| swimming in a reactor pool isnt that bad, water is a great
| radiation shield.
| jenadine wrote:
| Why is this interesting? Workers gets injured all the time and
| sometimes even die on various accidents in all industries and
| nobody ever talk about it. Is this anti-nuclear propaganda?
| yoavm wrote:
| I guess that U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is required to
| report any unusual events in the plants in the US, which would
| be reasonable. A worker falling into a nuclear reactor pool is
| unusual. The report itself doesn't seem like it's anti-nuclear
| in any way, and it clearly states "no impact on the health and
| safety of the public or plant personnel".
|
| If you're asking why it's interesting for HN, I think it's
| actually because people are fascinated with nuclear, in a
| positive way.
| aatd86 wrote:
| Because another mutant might be joining our ranks soon.
| jenadine wrote:
| Like in Teenage Ninja Turtles? Sounds cool! (But you know
| it's fictional, right?)
| matjazk wrote:
| New superhero on their way.
| gethly wrote:
| > They ingested some amount of cavity water.
|
| How dumb do you have to be to not only fall into it but to also
| swallow it...
| JumpinJack_Cash wrote:
| The fear about nuclear is so big that this idiocy gets 500 points
| and 350 comments because nuclear is scary
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| We're 50 years behind fusion because of people that now rage
| against fossil fuels. It's tough to see it keep happening
| despite the educational resources we have now vs the 70s and
| 80s.
| antirez wrote:
| Basically often it could be better to have an incident in a
| nuclear plant than in some building construction site... But the
| attention delta is incredibly high. 300 CPM sounds low, I hope
| they will be fine.
| outside1234 wrote:
| At Purdue university we had a small research reactor and to this
| day can remember looking down through the pool to see the blue
| glow of the nuclear reaction. It is crazy how well the water
| (boronized?) stops radiation.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| The XKCD has come to life!
|
| Accidental swimming is no fun, I wish the guy a full recovery
| from dihydrogen monoxide poisoning.
| grork wrote:
| 3.6 roentgen, not great, not terrible
| fsh wrote:
| I once worked in a nuclear research reactor, and they had
| lifebuoys at their pool. Quite prescient, as it turns out.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| > 300 counts per minute
|
| Roughly 10x background radiation.
|
| So like two weeks of sunshine in a day.
|
| Not a good day. Not fatal.
| Galanwe wrote:
| I'm not literate at all on nuclear physics, but I remember in the
| "Chernobyl" TV show (which seemed trustworthy) some divers died
| after going in the cooling water to close the pumps. How was that
| water different ?
| nvahalik wrote:
| I watched the show but if I remember correctly they actually
| didn't die. They survived.
|
| > The reality is much more positive than the myth, with all
| three men escaping such a grisly fate. Indeed, Alexei Ananenko
| and Valeri Bespalov are believed to be both still alive as of
| 2024, while Boris Baranov lived until 2005 when he passed away
| from heart disease.
|
| Source: https://www.history.co.uk/article/the-real-story-of-
| the-cher...
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