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Offline spentfuel

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #25 on: Jan 14, 2014, 12:26 »
Quote
The "vent duct"  story sounds like a later version of the Trojan OE of 1978 when an HP and an Operator each received @ 25R while monitoring dose rates near the transfer canal. The HP from that day forward called Teletectors  fence posts.  All you new generation HPs will never experience off scale pencil dosimeters.

Kinda correct but it was two house RP techs.  At Trojan back then they were RadChem so one was actually a chemistry tech just sent along to help drag a meter. The doses that were initially reported were around 24 and 22 Rem at least from what I recall.  Since nobody knew it was the transfer tube the two were standing about 6 feet from the tube when they heard a rattling noise as they looked around to try and determine the source of the noise, the Chem tech who had a R02 saw it peg and then the HP saw the teletector peg and then go to zero.  I think the whole thing took about 45 seconds before the fuel assembly passed and they took off.  When someone finally put two and two together they were both white as a sheet and the Chem tech was not very happy at all.  Sent for medical evaluations in an effort to cya and the blood test all came back normal.

sf





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Offline Marlin

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #26 on: Jan 14, 2014, 01:06 »
Kinda correct but it was two house RP techs.  At Trojan back then they were RadChem so one was actually a chemistry tech just sent along to help drag a meter. The doses that were initially reported were around 24 and 22 Rem at least from what I recall.  Since nobody knew it was the transfer tube the two were standing about 6 feet from the tube when they heard a rattling noise as they looked around to try and determine the source of the noise, the Chem tech who had a R02 saw it peg and then the HP saw the teletector peg and then go to zero.  I think the whole thing took about 45 seconds before the fuel assembly passed and they took off.  When someone finally put two and two together they were both white as a sheet and the Chem tech was not very happy at all.  Sent for medical evaluations in an effort to cya and the blood test all came back normal.

sf

He was a Foreman during the 1980 Trojan outage I was at and I believe I was told there were detectable changes which is consistent with standards then. Blood changes were detectable at 5 Rem acute exposure with a baseline blood sample and 25 Rem without a baseline blood sample. Been a while I could be wrong.

Offline Old HP

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #27 on: Jan 14, 2014, 04:02 »
Thanks for the updated info on Trojan. I had read the OE when it occurred in 1978 and then in late 1979 I left TMI for a fun filled 4 week adventure  to Trojan when they had a number of admin. overexposures. Back in those days some plants welcomed the experience that road techs had to offer. 
Anyway while at Trojan I became friends with the (at that time Chem. Tech) that was holding the Teletector when the fuel assembly passed. Then as stated earlier with pencil dosimeters they did not know their exposures until their TLDs were read.  I seem to recall 23R and 27R but what is a few R between friends?
 

Offline x6655

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #28 on: Jan 14, 2014, 07:49 »
I started my nuclear career at Trojan, the day after this happened.  It was my 27th birthday.  Trojan was a great place to work.

Offline Marlin

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #29 on: Jan 14, 2014, 08:05 »
Trojan was a great place to work.

Concur, even though we were vacuuming fuel pellets off of the spent fuel pool floor in 80. Met my current "BossLady" there and she still hasn't thrown me out after 33 years.  ;)

Offline Ewghost

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #30 on: Dec 13, 2015, 01:00 »
actually there were three chemrad techs involved in the transfer canal fiasco at trojan but the third was short and couldn't get overall the wall so he received a lot less dose.  if i remember was about 5 rem.

Jr8black3

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #31 on: Dec 15, 2015, 11:16 »
30+ years I seen all sides of it..I want to give a big ^5 out to all the HP's that jabbed me in the head with a teletector and say WTF..Now being a HP, I shake my head almost everyday, Im like really how stupid can ya be? Pre-job briefs don't seem to sink in. When your supervision and management won't support ya, your screwed..Way I look at it is ya fix stupid..Trust me I have tried...

Offline SloGlo

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #32 on: Dec 15, 2015, 12:36 »
..Way I look at it is ya fix stupid..

lemme no when yew start giving lessons, isle sine up for at least a bachelors degree worth.   ;)
« Last Edit: Dec 15, 2015, 12:37 by SloGlo »
quando omni flunkus moritati

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dew the best ya kin, wit watt ya have, ware yinze are!

Jr8black3

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #33 on: Dec 15, 2015, 07:38 »
Slo here is my lesson who cares???? Bad thing is I always do... 8) :D

Offline Randy Redmond

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #34 on: Jan 10, 2019, 11:03 »
Dang! I was the tech in the crane. 1500 mrem/hour in the crane cab.  Had to leave the crane when I reached 825 mrem.  Wasn't anything I could help the crane operator with anyway.  There was another couple of people (Harry Underwood RIP) and a spotter somewhere on the pressurizer house.  Fun times.

   I think that would be a bent control rod. The rod was not properly disconnected and when the upper internals were lifted and movement to the storage stand started it bent not allowing the upper internals to be moved. This was a CE plant where the Internal Core Instrumentation stored position is in the upper internals. RDTroja I believe you were also at that outage. If you have not been in the containment it is hard to relate dose in the R/hr range on the polar crane catwalk during the lift and movement of the internals to it's storage stand. I went in with one of the early crews trying to unlatch it but it was just the crane operator and another Rad tech on the walkway during the lift and movement.

   Lessons learned were primarily for operations on control rod unlatching. Not much choice on how to handle the move after additional attempts to unlatch the rod as is.

Offline Al Eidson

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #35 on: Jan 10, 2019, 12:09 »
Randy, remember when the inspection rig fell into vessel at Oconee 2. I'll never forget the look on that B&W techs face. All that along with the SG tube rupture and mrad on TB basement and LHRA on TB demins plus the HRA around pond on the hill. Things were quite different then.

Offline Marlin

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #36 on: Jan 10, 2019, 09:32 »
Dang! I was the tech in the crane. 1500 mrem/hour in the crane cab.  Had to leave the crane when I reached 825 mrem.  Wasn't anything I could help the crane operator with anyway.  There was another couple of people (Harry Underwood RIP) and a spotter somewhere on the pressurizer house.  Fun times.


I understood that you used a SIT tank as a shadow shield during the movement. Fun times  8)

Offline Randy Redmond

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #37 on: Jan 11, 2019, 12:14 »
RE: Oconee - 10 mrem/hour beaver and highly contaminated frogs in the TB basement.  After several days of smear, decon, smear, I quit screening bags of smears....bad move.  Sent Carole O'Shaughnessy some smears reading 50 mrad…………….needless to say she wasn't happy after placing them on her tennelec :-)
GOOD TIMES

Offline joebeats

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #38 on: Jan 11, 2019, 12:28 »
1980 finding 2mrem/hr on the beach at San Onofre, with kids playing in the sand.

Offline Bonds 25

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #39 on: Jan 11, 2019, 02:29 »
Callaway. During initial installation, the (very thick) cables from the TLD (Temporary Lifting Device) for removing Steam Generators came crashing down from atop the polar crane onto the refuel floor, smashing the front windshield of the temp crane and sprawling out all over the floor like spaghetti.  Amazing nobody was killed. I was told the hydraulics were installed backwards or something to that extent. 
"But I Dont Wanna Be A Pirate" - Jerry Seinfeld

tagline

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #40 on: Jan 11, 2019, 07:58 »
Callaway. During initial installation, the (very thick) cables from the TLD (Temporary Lifting Device) for removing Steam Generators came crashing down from atop the polar crane onto the refuel floor, smashing the front windshield of the temp crane and sprawling out all over the floor like spaghetti.  Amazing nobody was killed. I was told the hydraulics were installed backwards or something to that extent. 

I remember that. I was in the brief the day before when we were discussing welding the plates over the Hot/Cold legs area which had been cut off. The welding was to be performed while the SG was suspended by the TLD. A welder told the Mammoeut female engineer that all their training instructed them to "never work under a suspended load". The Eng. replied "the TLD will NEVER fail, it is impossible". That statement was proven wrong the next morning.
« Last Edit: Jan 11, 2019, 08:00 by tagline »

Offline Bonds 25

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #41 on: Jan 11, 2019, 11:52 »
EXACTLY !!!.....I was going to go into more detail including that but I decided not to. I was also at that brief.
"But I Dont Wanna Be A Pirate" - Jerry Seinfeld

Offline Marlin

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #42 on: Jan 12, 2019, 11:49 »
EXACTLY !!!.....I was going to go into more detail including that but I decided not to. I was also at that brief.

"Less is more"   ;)

tagline

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #43 on: Jan 12, 2019, 04:15 »
EXACTLY !!!.....I was going to go into more detail including that but I decided not to. I was also at that brief.

We worked side by side that Outage.

Offline Nuclear NASCAR

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #44 on: Jan 13, 2019, 08:50 »
Callaway. During initial installation, the (very thick) cables from the TLD (Temporary Lifting Device) for removing Steam Generators came crashing down from atop the polar crane onto the refuel floor, smashing the front windshield of the temp crane and sprawling out all over the floor like spaghetti.  Amazing nobody was killed. I was told the hydraulics were installed backwards or something to that extent. 

I remember the sick feeling I got when I heard about that when I came in the next day hearing about it in the pre-shift brief...
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge."

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Offline shehane

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #45 on: Jan 15, 2019, 04:17 »
Coming in on night shift to Waterford @1997 and finding a large portion of the area inside the protected area was posted as a contamination area.  Seems someone misjudged and over flowed the spent fuel pool and it ran out under a roll up door to the outside.  Let it be know that it was fine when I left and I was no where near the plant when it happened.
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be! Dirk Gently

Offline Marlin

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #46 on: Jan 18, 2019, 11:04 »
The hiring of back to back crazy RPM's at Indian Point. xxxxx, who quits every job and xxxxxxx, the furthest thing from being a team builder.


7. Peoples name's: It's a bad idea to use them, they lead to law suits. Some names are already censored because of this. Don't use names in stories or messages that could in any way be taken wrong.

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Offline scotoma

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #47 on: Jan 18, 2019, 11:49 »
So many screwups, so little time. Conn Yankee 1989 operated 461 days straight. Set a world record for continuous operation and also continuous operation with failed fuel. Primary coolant activity was over 30 uc/ml (>3E+1)and the sample bottles were HiRad for several days after S/D. Mostly Iodine and Xenon.The A/S from S/G breach was high rad and oozed through the protective wrap and crapped up the MCA. CR tech didn't select bkgnd subtract and they thought there was iodine everywhere. We wore respirators in street clothes even though we couldn't take a protection factor. They already had an alpha problem, and this didn't add much to it because the fuel failure was pinholes and allowed gases to escape but retained solid material. I wasn't there for their previous events - ruptured fuel in the late 70s, ruptured PRT rupture disc in '85 that released reactor coolant to the stack, release of several hundred contaminated concrete blocks to several homes and businesses. Stay tuned for more thrilling stories from places like IP2, Yankee Rowe, Ginna, et. al. Back in the day when the term "radiological controls" was only a concept.

Offline Al Eidson

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #48 on: Jan 18, 2019, 12:07 »
ANO 1st refuel they damaged a new fuel assembly trying to load into core and sent it back to spent fuel pool and removed from pool and laid it on floor with no notification of HP at all. Shift supervisor told HP supv he could send an HP tech up if he was going to help decon, if not , don't send one.

Offline ipregen

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Re: Worst screw up you have ever witnessed?
« Reply #49 on: Jan 18, 2019, 12:17 »
IP2 core barrel lift maybe 2005 or 2006. After briefing with the operating experience at Wolf Creek about lifting the barrel with low water, the SDRO gave the order to lift the barrel with low water. Lots of exposure and loss of his license. Followed by the explanation to the NRC that we did everything we could to prepare but at game time the operator didn't want to wait for the water, he wanted to finish the barrel move on his shift.

 


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