pauldw
Contributor
Sorry dude, good point.
Nuclear plant fatality - Marseilles, Illinois
- Thread starter DandyDon
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I am the cousin of Brett Roberts, I wanted to share the real facts of his death so no one can misunderstand his circumstances. Since you all are professional divers, perhaps you can shed light on my story. He was send down to do routine maintenance. I’m not sure what that entails. We have to assume he was basically sucked into some type of underwater vortex that caused him to be violently shaken to the point he died from a broken neck and blunt forced trauma to the head, he also received multiple broken bones before anyone lifted him out of the water. There are no jokes when it comes to a human life, I am not a diver myself but felt the need to set the record straight. They lostcommunication with him for 20 minutes before responding to 911. I’m not sure of theprotocols 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 helpanyone in the future, not to be in that same situation.
John the Pom
Contributor
Jim - There are all kinds of divers on this forum: recreational divers like me, technical divers who use mixed gasses and explore caves or penetrate wrecks, and commercial and military divers. We share and read these stories primarily to learn, and hopefully to make the diving we do a bit safer for us and our dive buddies. Being human, we may say the wrong thing, get into stupid arguments, or crack jokes when we shouldn't, but I think all of us who have shared the experience of diving feel like a band of brothers and sisters, and when we hear about a fellow diver being injured or losing their life, it touches all of us.
When it comes to diving, us humans are very poorly adapted to being underwater. We rely on a supply of gas to breathe and we are pathetic swimmers. Even the fittest of us struggles in a modest current, and if you get your plan wrong and end up caught in a tidal flow you are completely helpless against the strength of the water. Environments such as dams or cooling ponds where there is any significant flow, or the possibility of water draining through a pipe or valve between different water levels, are extremely hazardous, and divers should not be anywhere near the water under those circumstances. I hope there is a comprehensive investigation into your cousin's death to find out what went wrong.
I am an engineer by profession, and I was taught safety engineering by someone from the field of nuclear reactor safety. What those people always talk about is a "safety culture" and not just a workplace where lip-service is paid to a few procedures. Hopefully this tragic accident will bring about a proper safety culture in this workplace.
Thank you for your kind and informative response. I apologize for breaking into your forum and group you all created. I just felt as a family member and very close relative, that I needed to tell his story. I’m glad you were able to give me some insight to what may or may not of happened to him. He graduated second in his class in Washington State last year, but I do know as a general rule of thumb that most inexperienced people, no matter what the occupation, need more supervision then those more experienced. I’m not sure what the outcome will bring with OSHA and the NRC, but we are hopeful that the truth will be revealed.
Please do not apologize. We can't feel your level of grief, regardless, we feel deeply for you and yours.
We know that family members come here hoping for some answers and do try to figure out the answer or some answers for those close to the victim and for others in the future. We are not always successful but do, as a rule, try to be respectful.
I'm not likely to express our intentions as well as has been expressed above by @John the Pom.
sjensenpiper
Registered
First off I would like to say very sorry for you loss the commercial diving community as a whole is shaken ever time some one is lost. There is many factors that may have caused this death. The underwater vortex you describe could be a number of things one of the major concerns to commercial divers working near any opening that causes a pressure difference is what is called DELTA-P if you google search there is a great training video that explains it well. As for the call to 911 I can not speculate of what happened and this company emergency procedures. With my divers when there is a loss of communication (which theres constant montoring of breathing and voice over the comms.) we try and establish line pull signals and abort the dive. If line pull signals are not established right away the standby diver is splashed to check on the primary diver and rescue them is necessary. If there is a need for rescue then 911 will be call while the standby diver is preforming the rescue.
How long does that take? Perhaps 20 minutes?
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Jim, without a lot of speculation, I suggest that you allow OSHA and the NRC to do their investigations. While rare, divers drowning while working around traveling screens is not unheard of. This incident happened in 1986:
OSHA Cites Company Whose Divers Drowned In Intake Pipe
Another diver drown in Puerto Rico back in the 70's, he had to go through a manhole to get to the screens. He was exiting, and removed his SCUBA gear and fins, fell off the ladder and was sucked up against the screen. He did not have a safety line.
I can tell you that there is little delta p at a trash screen, there is however a lot of current. Some of the coolant pumps flow more than 25,000 gallons per minute, some wells have more than one pump. We actually measured the current at St Lucie Unit 1 in the 70's, it was 9 knots across the screen. These screens are big, 15-20 feet or more wide, and 20 feet or more deep. They are segmented into panels like a garage door to allow them to rotate.
There are mechanical pieces that rotate, although they should be locked out if a diver is in the water. I know that a diver is pinned against the screen by current with limited mobility. If you turn your head too much, the current will rotate a band mask off to the side of your head, and flood it. Not as bad with a hat.
The entire screen mechanism slides into a notch in the sides of the intake structure and into a track at the bottom. Although rare, they can remove the entire mechanism, but it means taking the pumps in that well offline.
Let the agencies investigate. Do not take what anyone says, including me, at face value.
OSHA Cites Company Whose Divers Drowned In Intake Pipe
Another diver drown in Puerto Rico back in the 70's, he had to go through a manhole to get to the screens. He was exiting, and removed his SCUBA gear and fins, fell off the ladder and was sucked up against the screen. He did not have a safety line.
I can tell you that there is little delta p at a trash screen, there is however a lot of current. Some of the coolant pumps flow more than 25,000 gallons per minute, some wells have more than one pump. We actually measured the current at St Lucie Unit 1 in the 70's, it was 9 knots across the screen. These screens are big, 15-20 feet or more wide, and 20 feet or more deep. They are segmented into panels like a garage door to allow them to rotate.
There are mechanical pieces that rotate, although they should be locked out if a diver is in the water. I know that a diver is pinned against the screen by current with limited mobility. If you turn your head too much, the current will rotate a band mask off to the side of your head, and flood it. Not as bad with a hat.
The entire screen mechanism slides into a notch in the sides of the intake structure and into a track at the bottom. Although rare, they can remove the entire mechanism, but it means taking the pumps in that well offline.
Let the agencies investigate. Do not take what anyone says, including me, at face value.
sjensenpiper
Registered
It all depends of every individual dive company’s emergency procedures and the man power they use. Like I said we try to get communication with our divers as soon as possible and the min we splash a stand by diver for total loss of communication our policy is to call 911 and request assistance. OSHA allows a team of three were the standby diver also acts as a tender witch can lead to unprepared standby diver when an emgency arises this can lend to a delay. ACDI recommends a min team of 4 were the Standby diver is not the primary divers tender.
cdst-ldy
Registered
There are so many areas and tasks commercial divers perform in these plants, with so little information available at this time, the options are numerous. It seems like the diver was working on the cold side, so it may also have been a circ water pump that was not properly deenergized or someone bypassed it for some yet to be determined reason. If it was suspected there was a live pump or other delta-P concern I am not of the opinion the crew would have immediately splashed a stby diver. That would be sending a second person in to trouble. I do hope that someone picked up a plant phone and called that control room immediately.
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