2 N-plant workers need medical treatment (2,000 - 6,000 millisieverts)

[FBaggins]

At a news conference on Friday, doctors from the institute said that 2 of the workers were standing in radioactive water for about 2 hours and were partially exposed to strong radiation, between 2,000 and 6,000 millisieverts. The doctors said the workers' skin show no signs of injury but they fear that symptoms may develop within 3 weeks' time. If this occurs, the workers will receive the same treatment used for burns.

The doctors also indicated that so far, the internal symptoms are not serious enough to require special treatment. As for the other worker, who was wearing waterproof boots and has no symptoms of internal radiation exposure, the doctors say he will not likely develop a skin disorder.

The director of the institute, Makoto Akashi, says the 2 workers should be able to carry on with their daily lives without discomfort. He added the 3 workers will be discharged early next week.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/26_03.html


On edit - I'm betting that they misreported mGy as mSv.

[PoliticAverse]

1. So these 2 workers...

were standing in (what they had to think was at least possibly) radioactive water for 2 hours and
they weren't even wearing waterproof boots?

That's some fine safety procedures they're following there...

[FBaggins]

2. And their dosimeters were reportedly sounding the alarm the whole time.

I don't know how many layers of hearsay are involved, but supposedly there wasn't any radiation detected in their the day before so they assumed the alarms were mistaken.

Seems pretty dumb, but it's hard to judge from 1/4 of a world away.

[PoliticAverse]

4. I read elsewhere...

that these were contract workers affiliated with a contractor to TEPCO.
You have to wonder how much training they received.

And to that point I submit this link to a Japanese made documentary on nuclear plant contract workers
in Japan on google video (with English subtitles and some English narration, ~ 26 minutes running time).
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4411946789896689299#

[FBaggins]

5. A very good point.

There are probably a couple thousand workers now rotating in and out of the plant. They probably don't all have the same level of training.

But surely all of the training should involve "pay attention to your dosimeters... it seems safe out here but you don't know what you'll run into"

If it doesn't, it should... and I'd bet it will from now on. They should also step up their gear requirements. The guy with the right boots on apparently didn't have much of a problem.

[PamW]

8. Mostly beta radiation...

If it doesn't, it should... and I'd bet it will from now on. They should also step up their gear requirements. The guy with the right boots on apparently didn't have much of a problem.
================================

Most of the radionuclides one would expect to find from the reactors are
beta radiation emitters. Although beta radiation ( which is just electrons )
have more penetrating power than alphas, they have no where near the penetrating
power of gammas.

The Japanese workers have not been distinguishing themselves in the handling of this.
In the one day grace period they had before real bad things would start to happen,
they attempted to fly in some backup diesel generators to replace the ones in the
plant's basement that got flooded by the tsunami. The new generators didn't have
the right connector plugs to plug into the plant's electrical grid.

Now we have them ignoring their radiation alarms.

With all the bungling, it is amazing that the effects of this have been so benign.

PamW

[xchrom]

3. Recommend

[cutlassmama]

6. omnious, grave development. I think they said the radiation was 10,000 times normal levels.

[FBaggins]

7. They'll be fine because it was their feet.

A dose that high could be deadly somewhere else... but the outsides of your feet just aren't comparatively prone to radiation damage (no sensitive organs).

But I bet they lose quite a bit of dead skin that wasn't dead a couple days ago. I don't know about the possibility of skin cancer in this case. The reported dose is well above the danger line for it, but it may have been enough higher that it just killed the skin cells that it could reach.

They appear to have gotten off quite lightly for such a boneheaded move.

[PamW]

9. It is like walking a tightrope.

The reported dose is well above the danger line for it, but it may have been enough higher that it just killed the skin cells that it could reach.
=========================

In order for radiation to give you cancer, it has to "walk a tightrope".

It has to deposit enough energy to do damage, which will result in the cancer.

However, it can't be so much that it just kills the cell outright. The dead cell
isn't going to develop cancer, it's dead.

So the radiation has to "walk a tightrope". It has to be enough to damage, but
not enough to kill outright.

PamW

[FBaggins]

10. That's about what I figured... I just don't know where the rope is.

It's complicated by the fact that the media can't seem to understand the appropriate units. They constantly report activity levels in terms of dose (among several other errors).

In this case I think they misunderstood the difference between exposure, dose, and effective dose... between Gy and Sv.

[PamW]

11. Yes - they can't even keep the unit straight.

In this case I think they misunderstood the difference between exposure, dose, and effective dose... between Gy and Sv.
===========================

Yes - they do seem mathematically challenged and can't even keep units straight,
often confusing exposure and dose, Gy vs. Sv.

It's almost as bad as when you hear people attempt to refer to an interval of time
measured in "light years". ????

For the scientifically challenged, a "light year" is not a unit of time, it is a unit
of distance..

A "light year" is the distance that light in a vacuum will travel in a year.

You can convert "light year" into its equivalent in feet or inches if you will.

You can not convert a "light year" to minutes or hours.

PamW

[hunter]

14. The innumeracy displayed in alternative energy discussions is equally appalling.

Kilowatts are confused with kilowatt hours. "Enough to power x houses" is a common expression of electrical output. Wind farms everywhere magically produce their rated output when the wind is not blowing. Magical solar farms, especially in Germany, replace coal and nuclear power while the sun isn't shining.

As drivers most people won't confuse "fifty miles per hour" with "fifty miles" but this kind of confusion occurs often in alternative energy discussions.

Some of the same people who will take advantage of this confusion to make their favorite alternative energy schemes sound better than they are will also confuse measurements of radioactive exposure to make it sound worse than it is.

[PamW]

17. Yes - it's all about them and not about serving the people.

Some of the same people who will take advantage of this confusion to make their favorite alternative energy schemes sound better than they are will also confuse measurements of radioactive exposure to make it sound worse than it is.
=====================================

It's all about them and not about serving the people.

They make all these grandiose claims about how their favorite method will give the
people the power they need benignly, when in actuality, it doesn't have a ghost of a
chance.

What do they think is going to happen if everyone jumps on their bandwagon, and then
their favorite technology can't deliver.

As many are familiar, there is a "point of no return" in the greenhouse gas problem -
that is, if you put enough CO2 in the atmosphere, it doesn't matter if you then mend
your ways, the environmental damage is irreversible.

Dr Patrick Moore states in the following seminar courtesy of C-SPAN, that if the human
race crosses that point without solving the CO2 problem, then the failure to avoid the
greenhouse gas problem can be laid at the feet of US environmentalists who chose the
most anemic solution to the GHG problem: solar. See:

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/199958-1

PamW

[BeFree]

12. I'm sure they'll be glad to know...

""They'll be fine because it was their feet.""

Now we have our own DU doctor making a prognosis from 1000's of miles away.
Isn't that special?

[FBaggins]

13. I'm sure they WERE glad to know.

Now we have our on DU doctor making a prognosis form 100's of miles away.

A prognosis that happens to match what the specialists standing right next to them have told them.

But of course... you have a different reason for disbelieving them, don't you?

[caraher]

15. This is common knowledge if you work with radiation

Doses to extremities are less dangerous. You're allowed a much greater dose to your hands than would be allowed as a full-body exposure reading because of the biology (already explained above).

Look up any basic health physics reference. This is not somebody playing doctor...

[BeFree]

16. Great news!!

Nuke waste is safe!! I'm sure there is nothing to worry about then.
Don't breathe or eat any of it, but swimming in it is safe.

It will just be like a nasty fucking burn, all over my body, but that's all!!

I am so glad to be edumacated.