Evening star., 1961-06-12
IDAHO
/ Acc Officials to Tell Congress
Of Findings in 5-Month Study
Continued From First Page

10 De gotten out.
The emergency rescue crews
were notified. Drilled with the
precision of ballet dancers,
these crews had the job of find
Ing people and getting them out.
Working in a radiation field
is a particularly hellish type of
rescue operation. There is no
heat to tell of danger, no visible
flame. The five human senses,
equipped to cope with the or
dinary perilS of life, are useless
where radiation is concerned.
Only the radiation detector
is useful. A little pistol-shaped
machine, it is greater per-
suader than any Colt AS. When
its dial says move" men move
and fast.
The first crew made IAN
Initial penetration" as the Acc
puts it.
e.
The Scene Inside
The inside of the building was
not exactly q ShambleS, but it
was a far cry from the usual
orderly state of SL-1'S reactor
floor. Parts of the reactor'S in
nardS were strewn around, and
pebbles from the shielding
around the reactor were every
where. At the side Of the re-
actor the radiation meters
screamed a warning of 1000 r
per hour-enough radioactivity
to kill man in 80 minutes.
Oddly, a light was still burn
ing inside. casting strange
shadows across the crowded,
disordered, circular room. Off
to one side something seemed
to move. The crew looked
again, not knowing whether to
believe their eyes. Then they
heard a low moan. They i'm
mediately sent for a stretcher
crew, but by the time the man
was carried out he was un-
conscious.
BY II o'clock, the Idaho Op-
erations Office was aware of
what had happened, and a
Glass 1" disaster had been de-
clared. Wayne Bills, deputy
director of health and safety,
arrived at the site about that
time. He had already been
briefed on developments to date
over the Acc radio in his car.
Radioactive Ambulance Il
An ambulance screamed up
to the reactor and took the
unconscious man aboard. In
side, a doctor and a nurse /
looked at their patient and then
at each other. They knew it II
was hopeless from the condition {
Of the mans body; he was OBJ
viously a mortalIy wounded ]
blast victim. But they told the
driver to head for the central
infirmary, 5 miles away. L
AS the ambulance passed a
guard post A-mile from Sill, [
radiation meters chartered an s
alarm. The vehicle passing by {
was registering 100 roentgenS
per hour-=a radioactive ambu- :
lance! - II
Health physics experts threw {
open the rear door of the am
.bulance and stuck meters in I
side. Three hundred-four hum
dred r.
The doctor examined his pa
tient again, and shook his head. q
DOA-dead on arrival: John d
A. Byrnes, specialist fifth class,
United States Army, age %, I
married, native of Utica, N. Y.
The ambulance took the body
to decentralization center on
the station.
The doctor and nurse were
found to have absorbed their
years safe allowance of radio
activity and so were tempor-
arily removed from duty in the
area. They suffered no injury.
Meanwhile, crews had located
q second body and saw at q
glance that the man was dead.
Rather than risk lives to re-
cover someone beyond saving,
they retreated from the high
radiation area and reported
their find to Mr.. Bills.
But what of the third man?
There had been three techni-
clans inside SL-1's reactor room
that night. They were instru-
menting the reactor - which
had been imperative since be-
fore Christmas-prior to its re-
start the following day.
Another crew went in and
came out moments later. They
had located the third body
pinned amid the pipes and
plumbing directly above the
reactor, at the very hottest"
place the radiation meters
could detect. Body No. 2 could
be removed easily enough, they ,,
reported, but not the one above
the reactor. Apparently it had
been propelled upward by the :
blast.
The doctors moved in again,
but not to deal with the casual
ties. They wanted to check
radiation doses absorbed by
rescue workers. With the fl :
nality Of a baseball umpire ,
banishing a manager to the
showers, a doctor told one of
the rescue supervisors to leave =,
instantly. In less than 2 min
utes of total exposure, the man /
had received PLOT NEARLY as :
much as the maximum indus ,
trial dose for two years work.
"All of the people who were
involved in those penetrations ,
Of the reactor floor will never ,
go in again." this man told me ;
in mid-February. He asked that
his name and those of others ,