No Job is Worth Your Life

[TAFKAP]

Industrial outage season is gearing up, and it's already started ugly at Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO). I've spent more hours than I can count at that facility, and it blows my mind that they had a fatality performing a job right along my line of work, in a place I've walked many footsteps.

Do it right or go to the house. There's no job or company on the face of this Earth that's worth your life. Be careful out there guys. It's drilled into our heads all the time, but maybe one more reminder might make you think enough to keep you from doing something stupid.

http://wtvr.com/2013/03/31/1-dead-3-hur ... ear-plant/

 

[hunter drew]

Yeah brother I e been there many of times. Heck we could have crossed paths before. I'm up at limerick right now. Then the next place is three mile island


It's pretty sad that a young man died. That's forsure

 

[fishboy1]

Gotta remember at all times...... That machinery WANTS TO KILL YOU and act accordingly. My helpers around the farm routinely walk in front of the tractor blocked from sight by the bucket and think I am unreasonable when I go ballistic on them.

One slip or trip and they will be run over.

 

[Kirk]

I was a safety director for many years. I can not recall a single injury that was not the fault of the injured employee. All of the injuries were failures to follow basic common sense rules.

 

[TAFKAP]

From what I understand, the crane & rigging contractor seems to be at fault. The stator crashed through the building and really did a tremendous amount of damage. I expect this crane contractor to be changing names (or ownership) very soon.

Not only will they have to pay a huge wrongful death lawsuit, they'll have to rebuild part of a nuke plant.

If you're a dumb terrorist, you fly a plane into the 6' thick containment building and blow your plane up. But if you really want to bring down a power plant, aim for the turbine building. I wonder if Unit 1 will ever come back on-line now.

 

[waynesworld]

I know one thing if you work in a high risk area like nuke engineering and working with the weapons you have had a few safety lessons and it is probably one of the safest places to work because of the safety rules but if you are not smart and follow the rules and common sense things can go bad real quick. When I worked in weapons we always said the warnings were written in blood.

 

[TAFKAP]

Yes.....and the sad thing is, they have been engaged in meetings for at least the past year on how to execute this lift properly. Nuke plants make it nearly impossible to screw up, and how this happened is beyond me. For one, it was detailed down to the simplest task, and somehow, someone slipped up.

Luckily, it wasn't in the containment building. And since this is a pressurized system, none of the stuff in the turbine building is radioactive. This is going to be EXTREMELY ugly. I doubt the crane company will be able to come out of this. Before yesterday, they were one of the top three names in the crane business.

 

[TRIGGER]

Safety rules are already over the top around those power plants. I have done a lot of geotechnical drilling at different power plants and its hard to get anything accomplished for all the safety rules. I agree you can never be too safe but some things are just rediculous. Looks like they will have a few hundred more safety procedures after this one. I feel sorry to the ones that were hurt and killed and also their families.

 

[plinker22]

Tragic!

You be careful out there TAFKAP (and hunter drew). You boys would be missed on TnDeer. Safety first... every time!

 

[TAFKAP]

Safety rules are already over the top around those power plants. I have done a lot of geotechnical drilling at different power plants and its hard to get anything accomplished for all the safety rules. I agree you can never be too safe but some things are just rediculous. Looks like they will have a few hundred more safety procedures after this one. I feel sorry to the ones that were hurt and killed and also their families.

Yes, they are over the top. And I can understand your level of frustration for geotechnical surveys that happen to be on the property of a nuke facility. But I've actually been in this plant, doing exactly this type of work, and when you consider the hundreds of millions (billions, even) of dollars worth of equipment you risk, never mind the lives of surrounding areas, there's no such thing as "too careful" to a nuke-head. I don't know what happened in this accident, but most rigging accidents are 100% preventable.

 

[hunter drew]

Thanks plinker. The diving part for us is for the most part safe when diving on radiological equipment. But I always say when working with cranes or any mechicanical equipment you can't trust it. If you do it can kill you.

 

[TAFKAP]

Here are some pictures I came across on Google. I hereby swear and/or affirm that I was in no way provided these photos by anyone in the industry. All credit for the original source goes to chat.anncoulter.com , where Google said they were located. Original owner of the photos is unknown.

This is a girder "tower" system, with an upper cross-beam, supporting what appears to be strand jacks. The stator is suspended by (2) wire rope slings, strangely connected to a spreader bar.

The girder system travels along the turbine deck (appx. 50' above the ground elevation), and approaches a train bay where they seem to be trying to lower the stator. I'm amazed at the number of people standing in such close proximity. I'd imagine Entergy Nuclear will address this in their post job review. It's not uncommon to have a ton of people around watching heavy rigging evolutions.

Looking towards the Unit2 side of the plant, there are large piping systems visible which transmit the steam from the low-pressure turbine back to the HP side of the system.

Ground level, outside, looking into the train bay. The girder system somehow collapsed, dropping the stator down to the ground.

Wider view looking into the train bay.

 

[TAFKAP]

Tragic!

You be careful out there TAFKAP (and hunter drew). You boys would be missed on TnDeer. Safety first... every time!

Thanks a lot, Plinker. Thankfully, I'm not involved in this level of the rigging business anymore. I work for a company that sells rigging products to companies like this. Gone are my 120-hour weeks in containment

 

[Inkstainz]

I know I worked at TVA allen and moved the stator out of one of the generators and shipped it off to be repaired. Then we put it back in after it was fixed. Was like a 65,000 lb lift. Was not quite nuclear safety rules but TVA made us all go through a 16 hour rigging class before hand and then we had like a 2 hour meeting about what exactly we were going to do. Fortunately for us it went smoothly.

 

[rem270]

Very Sad.

We had a fatality about 6 months ago. Not at my plant but another one in Alabama. The guy was a 3rd shift clean up guy. He did the same duties every night. Guess he decided not to lock a breaker out and was down cleaning in a hole and accidentally hit the On button. It was a slow, painful crushed death. It was horrible.

 

[TAFKAP]

g

I know I worked at TVA allen and moved the stator out of one of the generators and shipped it off to be repaired. Then we put it back in after it was fixed. Was like a 65,000 lb lift. Was not quite nuclear safety rules but TVA made us all go through a 16 hour rigging class before hand and then we had like a 2 hour meeting about what exactly we were going to do. Fortunately for us it went smoothly.

Unit 1 is almost rated at 1GW.....I think this stator is about 200 tons, if not more