Contract worker found dead at Cooper Nuclear Station
Officials with Nebraska Public Power District and the Nemaha County Sheriff’s Office are investigating the death of an out-of-state contract worker at Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville.
A plant employee found the worker's body on the refueling floor of the reactor building and notified the control room at 7:38 a.m. Tuesday, NPPD spokesman Mark Becker said.
The Nemaha County Sheriff's Office identified the man as Ronald Nurney, 66, of Smithfield, Va.
Investigators don't suspect foul play or an industrial accident in the death, according to a news release from the sheriff's office.
Control room operators declared a medical emergency, and Becker said onsite EMTs found the man unresponsive.
Becker said Nurney worked for Bartlett Nuclear Inc., a Plymouth, Mass.-based company that supplies radiation safety and protection personnel to the U.S. commercial nuclear power industry.
Becker said Nurney, who had worked at Cooper intermittently for a number of years, is one of many contract employees at the plant.
Nurney monitored radiation levels at the plant just south of Brownville on the Missouri River.
The plant has reported the incident to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and OSHA, as required.
NRC Region IV spokeswoman Lara Uselding said the two resident NRC inspectors are working closely with NPPD and the sheriff's office. She did not have information regarding similar incidents at other nuclear plants across the country.
"As of any workplace, humans are humans — we get sick, we age. There have been other cases at other plants where an individual was transported off site for medical reasons," Uselding said.