Re: Radioactive Contamination Anecdotes

[Gary Masters <gmasters@csn.net>]

Another one for the humor file...

In a previous life I was Leading ELT on a nuclear submarine. One day while
I was in the radiochemistry lab reviewing the previous day's analytical
and survey logs a young nuclear electrician came to the door. He was quite
excited and babled something about a radioactive spill in the bilge and
then ran off across the engineroom. I chased him down and asked for more
details. He then said that there was a coolant spill in the forward
engineroom bilge. When I asked him how he knew it was coolant, he said
"because it's green and glows." I explained that a coolant spill wouldn't
be green and wouldn't glow but he wasn't convinced. When we got to the
scene of the "spill" the "coolant" turned out to be anti-freeze. The deck
hands had accidently spilled the anti-freeze from a salvage connection 
that drained into that bilge.

I passed this story along because Navy nukes are pretty well trained
rad-workers yet this lad thought the world had come to an end.  This is
yet another example of how some rad-workers can sit through training, pass
written exams, and remain clueless. 


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