Criticality accident

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

I heard an after-dinner talk Friday the subject of which I thougt might be of itnrest to RADSAFERs.  The talk was by Tom Laughlin (sp?), who has published (with others) a LANL report on criticality accidents.  He talked only about process accidents -- accidents that occur during chemical processing of fissile material.  Some interesting points:


There have been 22 such accidents since 1943, 21 of them in solution (liquid) media.


There have been 9 fatalities altogether (I think I remember this number correctly).


The accidents appear to be the result usually of

* not following specified procedures (taking short cuts)

* not being given proper procedures

*not understanding what the consequences of an accident would be.


These accidents pose occupational hazards.  There have been no health effects to anyone but workers, and no environmental effects.


Most interesting of all: in several accidents he discussed, workers stopping the criticality would get tens of rad or more in a very short time, with no apparent ill effect.  At Tokaimura, the two heavily exposed persons died (one after 4 months and one after 6 months), but the third person, who received several HUNDRED rad, is apparently not only alive but in good health and leading a normal life. 


Just thought this would be of interest.  Tom is a dynamite speaker and I would suggest inviting him for one of your dinner meetings.  If there is interest, I can get the correct spelling of his name and some contact information.

Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com