Re: SL-1 accident

["J. J. Rozental" <josrozen@netmedia.net.il>]

At 09:44 AM 9/12/97 -0500, you wrote:
>A comparison of the emergency responses at SL-1 and Chernobyl raises some
>interesting questions. Los Alamos is preparing Emergency Responder
>training, so I would be grateful for comments on the following questions.
>
>1. What training already exists for emergency response in radiation fields
>~1000 rad/h?
>
>2. Should the response at either SL-1 or Chernobyl have been different? I
>know this is a hard question, and hindsight is too easy, but can anything
>useful be learned from these incidents?
>
>3. Specifically, at SL-1, it took 1.5 hours to locate the victims, one of
>whom was still alive. Considering that the maximum dose to a fireman was
>1.07 R, would it be fair to say that the response was on the cautious side?
>
>4. Conversely, at Chernobyl, 6 firemen died of acute radiation sickness.
>Would it be fair to say that the response should have been more cautious?
>
>5. In the article in Health Physics vol 9 pages 177-186, on page 185 the
>authors write "In the training of health physicists, one must tinker with
>their brains and install "flip-flop" circuitry for a factor of 1,000
>transition from routine operations to emergency response". Suppose I take
>this literally and say: if the field is < 5 rad/h, radiation is irrelevant
>to the emergency response; between 5 and 100 rad/h, keep your dose ALARA;
>if the field is >100 rad/hr, make a plan. Is this helpful.
>
>6. Item 5 should be qualified by emphasising that a measurement by a
>trained fireman is subject to error; for example, there may be a mixed
>field of betas, gammas, and neutrons; also, collapsing walls might change
>the shielding; therefore the measurements made by a trained fireman may be
>in error by as much as a factor of 10.
>
>Thank you, mike
>
>"Shlala gashle" (Zulu greeting, meaning "Stay safe")
>mike (mcnaught@LANL.GOV)
>
=======================================
1. Your questions demand very long discussion. To be Practical I recommend
you to write to IAEA and ask for the modules of the last IAEA/ANL (Argonne
Nat. Lab) Interregional Training Course on Planning, Preparedness and
Response for Radiological Emergencies (28 April to 16 May 1997). There are
many recent, technical documents on reactor accident assessment, issued by
the IAEA and practical examples dealing with emergency response, in case of
reactor and radioactive source's accident scenarios.  At the moment you may
contact Dr. Rafael Martincic at <R.Martincic@iaea.org>
If you wish you can mention my name.
 
2. About your 2 question: "Should the response at either SL-1 or Chernobyl
have been different? I know this is a hard question, and hindsight is too
easy, but can anything useful be learned from these incidents?"

Probably for the  Americans, the meaning of a  radiological incident is what
in the international context means a radiological accident. Example
Chernobyl Accident in case of a reactor or Goiania Accident, in case of a
radioactive source. To understand and be consistent with these  expressions,
I suggest to you  the INES: (International Nuclear Event Scale) -- User's
Manual - IAEA-INES-92/01, 1992. There you can understand  about comparison,
and the reason for why Chernobyl was a major accident, Scale 7,  and TMI was
an accident with off-site risk, Scale 5 -- Your question  is not a hard
question, if you read the document I am sure there will not be difficult to
you to get your conclusion. 

4. About your question 4 and part of 6 "Conversely, at Chernobyl, 6 firemen
died of acute radiation sickness. Would it be fair to say that the response
should have been more cautious?......therefore the measurements made by a
trained fireman may be in error by as much as a factor of 10".

a) Number of fireman who died 

You are wrong: Number of fireman who died in the acute phase of radiation
syndrome were 28, and 26  were associated with skin lesions that affected
over 50% of the total  body surface area. --

b)  The response should have been more cautious? ......therefore the
measurements made by a trained fireman may be in error by as much as a
factor of 10".

 Several important studies and programmes have been conducted over the past
ten years, including your question. It is not an easy task to prepare a
fireman, the first professional group to response at the early phase of the
accident and in the worst conditions. Chernobyl Plant was a graphite
moderated reactor and fireman was not trained to respond to an accident like
that.Anyhow  I recommend to you study the  lessons learned of the Chernobyl
Accident, for a complete understanding and to improve your purpose.

J. J. Rozental <josrozen@netvision.net.il>
Israel