Nuclear plant fatality - Marseilles, Illinois

[cdst-ldy]

Let the agencies investigate. Do not take what anyone says, including me, at face value.

This is a critically important piece of advice. For the family members, the investigation will take time, hang in there. There are a lot of details involved in accidents like this and they all need to be discovered and analyzed. At some point in time you should expect to have everything explained to you. If there are differences in explanations or it can not be presented in a manner that makes sense to you, dig deeper. Ask every question you can think of. Walk through the timeline and chain of events so you know every step of the day up to and following the accident. Wherever there are gaps in information or questions, dig deeper yet again. You may learn things you do not want to hear about or do not want to believe, but the purpose of any investigation is to find the facts. Be open minded to what you may learn, but do not just accept something that you are being told when you only half understand it. Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind: safety in commercial diving operations is a delicate balance between systems and processes established and implemented to provide safety to the personnel performing the work and the knowledge, actions and experience of the diver performing work in an area without other people present. This system is impacted by many variables, in this case, the actions of the plant personnel as well as the dive team members. Even if the investigation finds errors made by your cousin, the system had a failure that lead to those errors being made. A good investigation will uncover the system errors so they can be corrected to prevent this from happening to anyone else. If the only answers you receive end up pointing the finger at the diver, you can bet there is something very off with the investigation findings.

 

[Carl_F]

They lost communication with him for 20 minutes before responding to 911. I’m not sure of the protocols in place for safety, but I have to hope that there are faster safeguards set for divers in high risk situations. I hope this will help anyone in the future, not to be in that same situation.

I'm terribly sorry for your loss. The time taken to call 911 shouldn't necessarily be considered delay in getting a rescue or treatment. My experience is that nuclear sites typically have a first responder team on site. They were likely the first to be called and made the determination to call 911. This would have been after any rescue attempt and would have represented the fastest method to get immediate rescue and medical treatment. The subsequent reports should have the timeline of the accident as well as the causes. The reports should also reveal whether there were issues with the rescue or inappropriate delays in getting help from outside services.

Again, my condolences.

 

[Carl_F]

Even if the investigation finds errors made by your cousin, the system had a failure that lead to those errors being made. A good investigation will uncover the system errors so they can be corrected to prevent this from happening to anyone else. If the only answers you receive end up pointing the finger at the diver, you can bet there is something very off with the investigation findings.

I agree and I can't think of any cause that could be attributed to only the diver. The dive supervisor and staff oversight have roles that should prevent any action by the diver that would cause the event. Protocols are supposed to exist to prevent working on the wrong piece of equipment or being in the wrong area. And those protocols would include verification by the diver as well as others in case the diver makes an error. And oversight should ensure that the actions required by the diver and others are actually performed.

 

[Dkwas]

The nuclear plant is owned by Exelon and the dive company he worked for is called Underwater Construction Company (UCC). UCC has the Exelon fleet wide dive contract for there nuclear plants.