Nuclear plant fatality - Marseilles, Illinois

[DandyDon]

Maintenance diver dies at La Salle nuclear plant near Marseilles | The Times

A diver died Tuesday performing maintenance activities at the lake screen house at the La Salle Generating Station near Marseilles, according to a report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

According to the report, communications with a diver had been lost. Onsite and offsite emergency responders were dispatched. The diver was removed from the water but was unresponsive.

At 4:01 p.m., the La Salle County Station Operating Department was notified by emergency responders on-site the individual had died, according to the report.

Emergency crews were called to the nuclear power plant near Marseilles shortly after 3 p.m. Tuesday. Divers go into under water cooling areas at the nuclear power plant to perform maintenance duties.

Exelon issued a statement Wednesday morning: “Our hearts go out to the family, friends, and colleagues of the contract diver who passed away on Nov. 12 while working on a project at La Salle County Generating Station We continue to work with the diver’s employer and local authorities to help investigate this incident.”

La Salle County Coroner William Wujek said he may release more information Wednesday.

 

[Darol]

Not to speculate, but the number one cause of a fatality in that aspect of commercial diving is usually differential pressure.

 

[Superlyte27]

Lol, no it isn't.

 

[Superlyte27]

And I say this as a commercial diver who has dove in every single nuke plant and almost every single power plant in the USA.

 

[Superlyte27]

The NRC has a list of every single accident since 1950. It's public record and used to be available online. Might still be.

 

[Rich Keller]

It doesn't say exactly what he was doing but cleaning screens isn't usually very dangerous. He may have been trying to free up a jammed traveling screen which can be very dangerous depending on how far the screen moves once freed and if he is somehow caught up in it when it starts to move.

 

[ibj40]

Maintenance diver dies at La Salle nuclear plant near Marseilles | The Times

The headline screams of sensationalism, or at least an attempt at it. This type of accident could occur at just about any electric generation facility that pumps water for cooling purposes. They all have screens of one design or another.

Similar accident could also occur at water treatment plants or industrial facilities that have similar water intakes.

 

[drk5036]

It doesn't say exactly what he was doing but cleaning screens isn't usually very dangerous. He may have been trying to free up a jammed traveling screen which can be very dangerous depending on how far the screen moves once freed and if he is somehow caught up in it when it starts to move.

Care to expand on what this means? Not familiar with the terms

 

[ofg-1]

This is a traveling screen

The trash screen rotates up and out of the water to allow it to be cleaned of debris by non diving personnel. Works fine up the point that something jams in the screen, or the screen comes off the track. Divers work on them with the plant operating, we used to get the power company to throttle down in off peak hours, but it is a lot of water moving through that screen.

Most of the plants I have been in also has a metal grate in front of the screen to catch larger items.Along with a rake that can be lowered along the grate to pull up things caught in the grate, like a log, old boat parts, Jimmy Hoffa, etc.

 

[Darol]

So I'm sure you are familiar with lock out, tag out, having dove everything on planet Earth?