12 ms·

An ‘extraordinarily severe’ emergency: the radioactive leak at Harborview

248 points by curtis 7y ago

DigitalTerminal 7y ago
3.6 roentgen. Not great, not terrible.
- lugg 7y ago
  Thats uh, a very significant number.
  - easymodex 7y ago
    This man is clearly delusional. Take him to the infirmary.
  - dboreham 7y ago
    I believe it's a quote from a TV show.
  - egman_ekki 7y ago
    It's a quote from HBO series Chernobyl. (The dosimeter they had maxed at 3.6, so they reported up the chain of command number 3.6, to which the crisis group responded with the quote above)
    - lugg 7y ago
      Yes, and when the main character hears it for the first time he mentions it's a very significant number before being cut off by someone who thinks they know better. :P
arzel 7y ago
Great article, surprised this is the first time I’m hearing about this.
lifeisstillgood 7y ago
Reading this I realise that the idea of "Health and Safety" is a good one. Make a plan for the bad things that could happen and you just follow the plan - "Action On" it is called in the mklitary I believe The bit where someone asks "did you turn off the HVAC in the building once the radioactive particles went airborne?" is a classic example.
Stay_frostJebel 7y ago
About half of this machine's radioactive material leaked into the immediate vicinity after the radioactive source was removed from a larger machine as part of routine decommissioning.
- heisenbit 7y ago
  Basically equivalent to a dirty nuclear bomb going off with an under-powered dispersing mechanism. That building is not easy to clean up if at that is at all possible.
  - jsjohnst 7y ago
    Cesium-137 cleanup isn’t especially difficult compared to some other radioactive agents. A rather painful vigorous scrubbing (speaking from experience) is effective for external exposure and Prussian Blue is a moderately effective antidote for internal exposure that will likely prevent loss of life. No radiation contamination is “safe” and Cesium-137 is particularly nasty, but cleanup is definitely possible without long term effects (like at the Chernobyl site) generally.
bluescrn 7y ago
A decommissioning process that involves bringing cutting tools very near to the capsule of very dangerous stuff sounds like a bit of a design flaw?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- a3n 7y ago
  Maybe they never considered decommissioning in the design. Which itself would be a pretty severe flaw.
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    Perhaps the main focus is making it extremely difficult to access the radioactive material. So, no locks or anything that easy, you weld the thing shut. Makes it harder to decommission, but also makes it harder to steal.
dmix 7y ago
> Things were far from being back to normal, however. That the HVAC system was shut off to prohibit the cesium from spreading through the building was a good thing. But as it stayed off, in the days after the leak, the building started to heat up. Which meant the freezers in the building, which keep research specimen at -80°C, had to work harder to stay cool. Some were failing. Important research samples were in danger. > “Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, labor, and samples are being lost on a daily basis. This could destroy the careers of people who have been working their entire lives on research meant to save lives and improve public health and hospital outcomes,” an anonymous source told KIRO. > UW/Harborview personnel moved the contents of some units to other freezers nearby about a week after the spill, said Susan Gregg of the UW Medicine. > “If they were showing signs of failure, the materials were moved to other freezers,” Gregg said. “We were very diligent that none of those research specimens were damaged.” No specimens were found to have any contamination, she added. The animals, mostly rodents, held in the building’s vivarium, have all been moved to another location as well. It took about two weeks for the HVAC system to be turned back on. I love how they use a FUD quote from an "anonymous" source while following it up with an actual source which claims the complete opposite... People love to be dramatic. Also an interesting fact from Wikipedia: >> Accidental ingestion of caesium-137 can be treated with Prussian blue, which binds to it chemically and reduces the biological half-life to 30 days. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Caesium-137#/Health_risk_of_radioactive_caesium https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Caesium-137#/Health_risk_of_radi...
- Reelin 7y ago
  Having worked in a lab, I do not think this is FUD. Cryogenic freezers commonly cost > $10,000. Needless to say, space is very much at a premium. Worse, moving samples between freezers is incredibly time consuming because allowing them to thaw even slightly will often damage them. In a biomedical lab such as you might reasonably expect to find at Harborview, many of the samples will invariable be living cells that have been frozen in order to preserve them (ie they can be thawed later and will still be alive... some percentage of them, at least). These samples are incredibly sensitive to how they are handled.
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
tega12 7y ago
https://crackpediaa.com/recover-my-files-full-crack-key/ https://crackpediaa.com/recover-my-files-full-crack-key/
Katzenjammer 7y ago
Jesus that read like a big ol fuck up. The lack of preparation for a spill, despite having all these people on site, is the most glaring issue. SFD didn’t even get a heads up.
goldenkey 7y ago
What surprises me the most is that they did the cutting in an open room (door open) without taping over the HVAC vents. They literally could have made a makeshift tent out of plastic tarps to do the cutting inside. Such bad safety precautions...
- ricardobeat 7y ago
  The article says they put up a steel chamber for that purpose, but it’s totally unclear what exactly happened.
Mbaqanga 7y ago
It sounds like the removal of the vial was done on-site for somewhat reasonable reasons, but in the future they ought to have a temporary structure erected during removal so that if something happens, the dust doesn't get blown and tracked everywhere. Doing this in a shipping container would have avoided all of these problems and most of the exposure to people as well.
- simonh 7y ago
  From the article: "International Isotopes contractors had set up a secure steel “chamber” wherein they would perform a crucial, most perilous part of the operation: removing the capsule with cesium-137 from the irradiator." The problem is they didn't realise it had happened straight away. They only discovered the leak later, when performing a routine wipe-down check of the area. There are still details missing though, like how come they didn't perform the wipe-down check before opening the chamber? Or did they? As the article says, it's not clear exactly what happened.
  - jcims 7y ago
    I’m curious how you don’t know that you cut into the capsule. It’s supposedly a white powder, wouldn’t it make a cloud? Also if this is possible wouldn’t you put sone contingencies in place, like mount the grinder on limited travel arm or something? Sound’s like they just went at it with a $30 DeWalt. The whole thing seems kind of ridiculous.
    - a3n 7y ago
      They're only a 20 something million dollar company, so everything is probably done as cheaply and simply as possible. Like many companies, they may also have trouble hiring people.
    - simonh 7y ago
      It depends how heavily it was disturbed. They describe it as like talcum powder. If it's that fine, tiny particles could disperse in the air invisibly.
    - 7y ago
tega12 7y ago
https://quotes4day.com/birthday-wishes-for-sister-quotes/ https://quotes4day.com/birthday-wishes-for-sister-quotes/
mirimir 7y ago
For context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident > The Goiânia accident [ɡojˈjɐniɐ] was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, in Goiânia, in the Brazilian state of Goiás, after a forgotten radiotherapy source was taken from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 were found to have significant levels of radioactive material in or on their bodies. > In the cleanup operation, topsoil had to be removed from several sites, and several hundred houses were demolished. All the objects from within those houses, including personal possessions, were seized and incinerated. Time magazine has identified the accident as one of the world's "worst nuclear disasters" and the International Atomic Energy Agency called it "one of the world's worst radiological incidents".
- LeifCarrotson 7y ago
  How does incinerating a contaminated radioactive object help clean up the accident? That sounds like a "Dilute the pollution by pouring it into the ocean" solution. Isn't burial the better option?
  - abdullahkhalids 7y ago
    It leaves no possibility that someone accidentally uses that item. I assume the incinerated remains were buried or disposed off in some other way.
  - jellicle 7y ago
    Well, imagine you have 500 wooden chairs, lightly contaminated. If you incinerate them carefully (running all waste gases through filters before being released to the atmosphere), you can convert 500 wooden chairs into a couple pounds of contaminated ashes and filters. Which are much easier and cheaper to dispose of.
    - mirimir 7y ago
      As long as there are no gaseous radioisotopes in amounts that matter.
YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
The International Atomic Energey Committee who is tasked with investigating this kind of accident has many reports on accidents including irradiators. It seems that these are not uncommon (as radiation accidents go), probably because the radioactive sources in irradiators are made to be moved about and occasionally transported, much more so than, e.g. the radioactive fuel in reactors, or even weapons. Lax standards or just changing circumstances such as an owner moving or going out of business (or collapsing entirely, like in the case of the USSR) has caused accidents, in the past. A famous example is the accident in Goiânia, in Brazil, in 1985. In short, a private radiotherapy institute moved house leaving behind a working caesium 137 teletherapy unit with the source still in it. Two people took parts of the unit, broke them apart and sold them to a scrap yard. The owner noticed the blue glow of the strange salt-like substance in the unit and took it home and showed it to his friends and family. People became fascinated with the sight and took fragments of it to their homes where their kids and family played with it. Eventually, someone connected the fact that people were getting sick with the strange glowing stuff and took a sample to the public health department. This led to the accident being discovered. Some 250 people were contaminated and four died while others suffered radiation sickness, but fortunately recovered. Lest this be taken as evidence of the low risk from such accidents let it just be said: you don't want your kids playing with sparkly blue radioactive stardust. IAEA accident report here: https://www.iaea.org/publications/3684/the-radiological-accident-in-goiania https://www.iaea.org/publications/3684/the-radiological-acci...
- thatfunkymunki 7y ago
  This is interestingly similar to the Star Trek episode "Thine Own Self" where there is a village similarly interested in radioactive material.
  - Already__Taken 7y ago
    And a House episode
  - mixmastamyk 7y ago
    TNG, with an amnesiac Data and a blonde girl. The town people are not very advanced and turn against him.
devit 7y ago
It doesn't seem ideal to require cutting to remove a radioactive capsule. If done for security, a lock seems better.
dustfinger 7y ago
>This could destroy the careers of people who have been working their entire lives on research meant to save lives and improve public health and hospital outcomes That is devastating for the researchers.
- whyenot 7y ago
  My university lost power for about 9 hours a few years ago. Several labs did not have their -80s hooked into emergency backup power (due to limits of the building, very understandable reasons). I remember a professor sitting in the dark hallway outside his lab, in tears. He could only watch as temperatures rose, and he lost almost everything. It was heartbreaking.
- closeparen 7y ago
  Happened on my campus. Freezers even had temperature alarms monitored by the university police, but no one reacted to the alerts. Among other things, an 80 year longitudinal study was lost.
dustfinger 7y ago
Why is the cleanup crew not wearing safety gear? Given how easily the cesium powder disperses in the air, at the very least, I would want a mask to prevent the cesium from entering my lungs.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  Costs over safety. If a regulation isn't enforced, it will likely be forgone.
sunebeck 7y ago
I wonder why they named the picture 'Tsjernobyl-1.jpg'. https://i2.wp.com/www.capitolhillseattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Tsjernobyl-1.jpg?fit=1700%2C832 https://i2.wp.com/www.capitolhillseattle.com/wp-content/uplo...
- cesarb 7y ago
  Even more bizarre, the gallery page for that picture has a slug of "on-the-list-before-stonewall-film-ginsberg-poetry-festival-at-volunteer-park-seattle-poetry-slam": http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2019/06/on-the-list-before-stonewall-film-ginsberg-poetry-festival-at-volunteer-park-seattle-poetry-slam/tsjernobyl-1/ http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2019/06/on-the-list-before... (and the image is titled "Leak 2"). There are other interesting images in that gallery that aren't on the article (or perhaps are visible only if you have javascript enabled).
  - boogiewoogie 7y ago
    SEO is my first inclination
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
Spooky23 7y ago
The good news is that nobody was putting solar panels in the roof. So expect no problems! /s
jswizzy 7y ago
As a former Rad worker who has even cleaned up a radioactive spill I'm just shacking my head at the all the "experts" in the comments.
- heyoni 7y ago
  Why? (Serious)
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  This is probably pretty typical. The more you know, the more you read and just shake your head. I made medical imaging software for treatment and diagnosis for a living. I suspect I have the same reaction to posts on oncology issues, or FDA issues that you are having to posts on this issue. It's important to realize though, that some of the people commenting with obvious gaps in their knowledge are making a sincere attempt at learning more. Especially if the subject is technical rather than political in nature. Just jump in and correct them. If any of your corrections are received poorly by the user, well, just let them alone. But the curious, 'seeker' types will probably thank you and ask for more information.
  - lasdfas 7y ago
    I think "some" is very few (if any at all) in my experience. If you are generally looking for knowledge or not sure, you preface with "I may be wrong", "I am not an expert" or other such phrases, but most often people state wrong information as facts with no caveats. It's probably some combination of over confidence and ignorance.
    - ksec 7y ago
      That is one of the problem with online discussions. Would be great if there is a discussion on how to fix this.
    - fwip 7y ago
      HackerNews tech bros, chasing that upvote validation. When you've been rewarded all your life for being smart and right, you tend to think your guesses are right and announce them loudly.
sproketboy 7y ago
It kills Leftists so all is good.
stefan_ 7y ago
If this is how involved removing the thing is, how exactly was it built? And if you can't transport it inside the irradiator, how did the irradiator get there?
- droithomme 7y ago
  > how did the irradiator get there On a flatbed or inside a semi, down the freeway, then installed with a combination of cranes and forklifts. The irradiator goes out on the truck, but in modern times they don't want the cesium in it because of less perceived risk of truck accidents and terrorist hijackings. The small radioactive capsule can be sent more discretely via a smaller vehicle, and a security escort.
bahmboo 7y ago
This is a well researched article. Although mistakes can be made it's a bit puzzling that there was so much miscommunication. Maybe too many orgs involved. That Seattle fire department wasn't even informed beforehand seems clumsy.
- lostlogin 7y ago
  It seems like the miscommunication was intentional, but that’s just my interpretation.
jpindar 7y ago
According to the NRC notice, it's a JL Shepard Mark 168A https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2019/20190510en.html https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/... There's some pictures of a similar device here: https://www.bnl.gov/nsrl/grsf/ https://www.bnl.gov/nsrl/grsf/ It doesn't show why you'd need a grinder to take it apart, though.
jcims 7y ago
In looking for the construction of the capsule I found this article about a similar contamination issue with Cesium. Reading through the Events section that discovers theft and attempts at recovering the Cesium because of its blue glow are mind blowing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident#Events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident#Events
- andbberger 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing. Makes one think about all those efforts to come up with a way to make nuclear waste sites look scary for millenia. Of course, you could just bury it somewhere and not leave a mark, but that's no fun.
ISL 7y ago
Thank you, Capitol Hill Seattle (and Margo Vansynghel in particular!), for real investigative journalism that the major Seattle papers and news outlets haven't done on this story. I have minor quibbles on the facts, and with some of the tone of the story, but I'm glad to see that a journalist was able to put in the time to research and write a long-form story about which the Seattle community will care. For the commenters lining up to throw stones -- we all find in time that our own homes are made, at least in part, of glass. It is intrinsic to any accident that at least one mistake was made, but discerning how and why the mistake came to pass almost always takes longer than anyone would like. Throwing stones too early often means that they will miss their mark, becoming mistakes of their own. Edit: crediting Margo Vansynghel, the article's author
- mannykannot 7y ago
  Criticizing people with the use of hindsight is one thing, but if "this is unacceptably risky" would have been the right response to the planned procedure beforehand, then it is still valid afterwards.
aabajian 7y ago
I'm a radiology resident at UW and we haven't really heard much about this event. Harborview is a phenomenal hospital, and (in my opinion) the best one in the UW system. The University has a pretty good track record of admitting fault, even when it costs the system millions. See: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/uw-medicine-mistakenly-exposed-information-on-nearly-1-million-patients/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/uw-medicine... UW Medicine itself is not doing well financially (they lost $75 million last year): https://www.washington.edu/regents/files/2018/01/2018-02-B-2.pdf https://www.washington.edu/regents/files/2018/01/2018-02-B-2... Harborview was the only profitable hospital in the system. Seattle is the second-largest tech city in the nation and housing prices have grown astronomically, just like in SF. The difference between UW and, say, Stanford or UCSF, is that UW's patient population comes from the WWAMI states. They don't typically treat the young tech works, although I have had a couple older Boeing/Microsoft patients. UW/Harborview patients continue to be mostly low-income Seattlites and tertiary care/trauma patients from the WWAMI states. The UW takes care of poor/rural patients while existing in a wealthy city. It's a unique place to work. EDIT: I asked my fellow radiology residents about this event "We had a nuc med lecture on the event! It's super interesting how they managed it." "We had a separate nuclear medicine lecture on a Tuesday by the woman who helped managed the incident and is responsible for nuclear accidents." "Was on HMC call that night. Physics lecture on that was useful. Radiation --> reflex call radiologist is a real thing." "Cool. Honestly they should just reflex call them. I just paged them anyway." “3.6 roentgens per hour. Not great, not terrible.”
- pbourke 7y ago
  >“3.6 roentgens per hour. Not great, not terrible.” Is that a “Chernobyl” (HBO miniseries) reference? (Protip: watch it)
  - glitchcrab 7y ago
    It definitely was.

248 points by curtis 7y ago

DigitalTerminal 7y ago

3.6 roentgen. Not great, not terrible.

lugg 7y ago
Thats uh, a very significant number.
- easymodex 7y ago
  This man is clearly delusional. Take him to the infirmary.
- dboreham 7y ago
  I believe it's a quote from a TV show.
- egman_ekki 7y ago
  It's a quote from HBO series Chernobyl. (The dosimeter they had maxed at 3.6, so they reported up the chain of command number 3.6, to which the crisis group responded with the quote above)
  - lugg 7y ago
    Yes, and when the main character hears it for the first time he mentions it's a very significant number before being cut off by someone who thinks they know better. :P

arzel 7y ago

Great article, surprised this is the first time I’m hearing about this.

lifeisstillgood 7y ago

Reading this I realise that the idea of "Health and Safety" is a good one. Make a plan for the bad things that could happen and you just follow the plan - "Action On" it is called in the mklitary I believe The bit where someone asks "did you turn off the HVAC in the building once the radioactive particles went airborne?" is a classic example.

Stay_frostJebel 7y ago

About half of this machine's radioactive material leaked into the immediate vicinity after the radioactive source was removed from a larger machine as part of routine decommissioning.

heisenbit 7y ago
Basically equivalent to a dirty nuclear bomb going off with an under-powered dispersing mechanism. That building is not easy to clean up if at that is at all possible.
- jsjohnst 7y ago
  Cesium-137 cleanup isn’t especially difficult compared to some other radioactive agents. A rather painful vigorous scrubbing (speaking from experience) is effective for external exposure and Prussian Blue is a moderately effective antidote for internal exposure that will likely prevent loss of life. No radiation contamination is “safe” and Cesium-137 is particularly nasty, but cleanup is definitely possible without long term effects (like at the Chernobyl site) generally.

bluescrn 7y ago

A decommissioning process that involves bringing cutting tools very near to the capsule of very dangerous stuff sounds like a bit of a design flaw?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
a3n 7y ago
Maybe they never considered decommissioning in the design. Which itself would be a pretty severe flaw.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  Perhaps the main focus is making it extremely difficult to access the radioactive material. So, no locks or anything that easy, you weld the thing shut. Makes it harder to decommission, but also makes it harder to steal.

dmix 7y ago

> Things were far from being back to normal, however. That the HVAC system was shut off to prohibit the cesium from spreading through the building was a good thing. But as it stayed off, in the days after the leak, the building started to heat up. Which meant the freezers in the building, which keep research specimen at -80°C, had to work harder to stay cool. Some were failing. Important research samples were in danger. > “Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, labor, and samples are being lost on a daily basis. This could destroy the careers of people who have been working their entire lives on research meant to save lives and improve public health and hospital outcomes,” an anonymous source told KIRO. > UW/Harborview personnel moved the contents of some units to other freezers nearby about a week after the spill, said Susan Gregg of the UW Medicine. > “If they were showing signs of failure, the materials were moved to other freezers,” Gregg said. “We were very diligent that none of those research specimens were damaged.” No specimens were found to have any contamination, she added. The animals, mostly rodents, held in the building’s vivarium, have all been moved to another location as well. It took about two weeks for the HVAC system to be turned back on. I love how they use a FUD quote from an "anonymous" source while following it up with an actual source which claims the complete opposite... People love to be dramatic. Also an interesting fact from Wikipedia: >> Accidental ingestion of caesium-137 can be treated with Prussian blue, which binds to it chemically and reduces the biological half-life to 30 days. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Caesium-137#/Health_risk_of_radioactive_caesium https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Caesium-137#/Health_risk_of_radi...

Reelin 7y ago
Having worked in a lab, I do not think this is FUD. Cryogenic freezers commonly cost > $10,000. Needless to say, space is very much at a premium. Worse, moving samples between freezers is incredibly time consuming because allowing them to thaw even slightly will often damage them. In a biomedical lab such as you might reasonably expect to find at Harborview, many of the samples will invariable be living cells that have been frozen in order to preserve them (ie they can be thawed later and will still be alive... some percentage of them, at least). These samples are incredibly sensitive to how they are handled.
YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago

tega12 7y ago

https://crackpediaa.com/recover-my-files-full-crack-key/ https://crackpediaa.com/recover-my-files-full-crack-key/

Katzenjammer 7y ago

Jesus that read like a big ol fuck up. The lack of preparation for a spill, despite having all these people on site, is the most glaring issue. SFD didn’t even get a heads up.

goldenkey 7y ago

What surprises me the most is that they did the cutting in an open room (door open) without taping over the HVAC vents. They literally could have made a makeshift tent out of plastic tarps to do the cutting inside. Such bad safety precautions...

ricardobeat 7y ago
The article says they put up a steel chamber for that purpose, but it’s totally unclear what exactly happened.

Mbaqanga 7y ago

It sounds like the removal of the vial was done on-site for somewhat reasonable reasons, but in the future they ought to have a temporary structure erected during removal so that if something happens, the dust doesn't get blown and tracked everywhere. Doing this in a shipping container would have avoided all of these problems and most of the exposure to people as well.

simonh 7y ago
From the article: "International Isotopes contractors had set up a secure steel “chamber” wherein they would perform a crucial, most perilous part of the operation: removing the capsule with cesium-137 from the irradiator." The problem is they didn't realise it had happened straight away. They only discovered the leak later, when performing a routine wipe-down check of the area. There are still details missing though, like how come they didn't perform the wipe-down check before opening the chamber? Or did they? As the article says, it's not clear exactly what happened.
- jcims 7y ago
  I’m curious how you don’t know that you cut into the capsule. It’s supposedly a white powder, wouldn’t it make a cloud? Also if this is possible wouldn’t you put sone contingencies in place, like mount the grinder on limited travel arm or something? Sound’s like they just went at it with a $30 DeWalt. The whole thing seems kind of ridiculous.
  - a3n 7y ago
    They're only a 20 something million dollar company, so everything is probably done as cheaply and simply as possible. Like many companies, they may also have trouble hiring people.
  - simonh 7y ago
    It depends how heavily it was disturbed. They describe it as like talcum powder. If it's that fine, tiny particles could disperse in the air invisibly.
  - 7y ago

tega12 7y ago

https://quotes4day.com/birthday-wishes-for-sister-quotes/ https://quotes4day.com/birthday-wishes-for-sister-quotes/

mirimir 7y ago

For context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident > The Goiânia accident [ɡojˈjɐniɐ] was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, in Goiânia, in the Brazilian state of Goiás, after a forgotten radiotherapy source was taken from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 were found to have significant levels of radioactive material in or on their bodies. > In the cleanup operation, topsoil had to be removed from several sites, and several hundred houses were demolished. All the objects from within those houses, including personal possessions, were seized and incinerated. Time magazine has identified the accident as one of the world's "worst nuclear disasters" and the International Atomic Energy Agency called it "one of the world's worst radiological incidents".

LeifCarrotson 7y ago
How does incinerating a contaminated radioactive object help clean up the accident? That sounds like a "Dilute the pollution by pouring it into the ocean" solution. Isn't burial the better option?
- abdullahkhalids 7y ago
  It leaves no possibility that someone accidentally uses that item. I assume the incinerated remains were buried or disposed off in some other way.
- jellicle 7y ago
  Well, imagine you have 500 wooden chairs, lightly contaminated. If you incinerate them carefully (running all waste gases through filters before being released to the atmosphere), you can convert 500 wooden chairs into a couple pounds of contaminated ashes and filters. Which are much easier and cheaper to dispose of.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    As long as there are no gaseous radioisotopes in amounts that matter.

YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago

The International Atomic Energey Committee who is tasked with investigating this kind of accident has many reports on accidents including irradiators. It seems that these are not uncommon (as radiation accidents go), probably because the radioactive sources in irradiators are made to be moved about and occasionally transported, much more so than, e.g. the radioactive fuel in reactors, or even weapons. Lax standards or just changing circumstances such as an owner moving or going out of business (or collapsing entirely, like in the case of the USSR) has caused accidents, in the past. A famous example is the accident in Goiânia, in Brazil, in 1985. In short, a private radiotherapy institute moved house leaving behind a working caesium 137 teletherapy unit with the source still in it. Two people took parts of the unit, broke them apart and sold them to a scrap yard. The owner noticed the blue glow of the strange salt-like substance in the unit and took it home and showed it to his friends and family. People became fascinated with the sight and took fragments of it to their homes where their kids and family played with it. Eventually, someone connected the fact that people were getting sick with the strange glowing stuff and took a sample to the public health department. This led to the accident being discovered. Some 250 people were contaminated and four died while others suffered radiation sickness, but fortunately recovered. Lest this be taken as evidence of the low risk from such accidents let it just be said: you don't want your kids playing with sparkly blue radioactive stardust. IAEA accident report here: https://www.iaea.org/publications/3684/the-radiological-accident-in-goiania https://www.iaea.org/publications/3684/the-radiological-acci...

thatfunkymunki 7y ago
This is interestingly similar to the Star Trek episode "Thine Own Self" where there is a village similarly interested in radioactive material.
- Already__Taken 7y ago
  And a House episode
- mixmastamyk 7y ago
  TNG, with an amnesiac Data and a blonde girl. The town people are not very advanced and turn against him.

devit 7y ago

It doesn't seem ideal to require cutting to remove a radioactive capsule. If done for security, a lock seems better.

dustfinger 7y ago

>This could destroy the careers of people who have been working their entire lives on research meant to save lives and improve public health and hospital outcomes That is devastating for the researchers.

whyenot 7y ago
My university lost power for about 9 hours a few years ago. Several labs did not have their -80s hooked into emergency backup power (due to limits of the building, very understandable reasons). I remember a professor sitting in the dark hallway outside his lab, in tears. He could only watch as temperatures rose, and he lost almost everything. It was heartbreaking.
closeparen 7y ago
Happened on my campus. Freezers even had temperature alarms monitored by the university police, but no one reacted to the alerts. Among other things, an 80 year longitudinal study was lost.

dustfinger 7y ago

Why is the cleanup crew not wearing safety gear? Given how easily the cesium powder disperses in the air, at the very least, I would want a mask to prevent the cesium from entering my lungs.

hanniabu 7y ago
Costs over safety. If a regulation isn't enforced, it will likely be forgone.

sunebeck 7y ago

I wonder why they named the picture 'Tsjernobyl-1.jpg'. https://i2.wp.com/www.capitolhillseattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Tsjernobyl-1.jpg?fit=1700%2C832 https://i2.wp.com/www.capitolhillseattle.com/wp-content/uplo...

cesarb 7y ago
Even more bizarre, the gallery page for that picture has a slug of "on-the-list-before-stonewall-film-ginsberg-poetry-festival-at-volunteer-park-seattle-poetry-slam": http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2019/06/on-the-list-before-stonewall-film-ginsberg-poetry-festival-at-volunteer-park-seattle-poetry-slam/tsjernobyl-1/ http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2019/06/on-the-list-before... (and the image is titled "Leak 2"). There are other interesting images in that gallery that aren't on the article (or perhaps are visible only if you have javascript enabled).
- boogiewoogie 7y ago
  SEO is my first inclination
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

Spooky23 7y ago

The good news is that nobody was putting solar panels in the roof. So expect no problems! /s

jswizzy 7y ago

As a former Rad worker who has even cleaned up a radioactive spill I'm just shacking my head at the all the "experts" in the comments.

heyoni 7y ago
Why? (Serious)
bilbo0s 7y ago
This is probably pretty typical. The more you know, the more you read and just shake your head. I made medical imaging software for treatment and diagnosis for a living. I suspect I have the same reaction to posts on oncology issues, or FDA issues that you are having to posts on this issue. It's important to realize though, that some of the people commenting with obvious gaps in their knowledge are making a sincere attempt at learning more. Especially if the subject is technical rather than political in nature. Just jump in and correct them. If any of your corrections are received poorly by the user, well, just let them alone. But the curious, 'seeker' types will probably thank you and ask for more information.
- lasdfas 7y ago
  I think "some" is very few (if any at all) in my experience. If you are generally looking for knowledge or not sure, you preface with "I may be wrong", "I am not an expert" or other such phrases, but most often people state wrong information as facts with no caveats. It's probably some combination of over confidence and ignorance.
  - ksec 7y ago
    That is one of the problem with online discussions. Would be great if there is a discussion on how to fix this.
  - fwip 7y ago
    HackerNews tech bros, chasing that upvote validation. When you've been rewarded all your life for being smart and right, you tend to think your guesses are right and announce them loudly.

sproketboy 7y ago

It kills Leftists so all is good.

stefan_ 7y ago

If this is how involved removing the thing is, how exactly was it built? And if you can't transport it inside the irradiator, how did the irradiator get there?

droithomme 7y ago
> how did the irradiator get there On a flatbed or inside a semi, down the freeway, then installed with a combination of cranes and forklifts. The irradiator goes out on the truck, but in modern times they don't want the cesium in it because of less perceived risk of truck accidents and terrorist hijackings. The small radioactive capsule can be sent more discretely via a smaller vehicle, and a security escort.

bahmboo 7y ago

This is a well researched article. Although mistakes can be made it's a bit puzzling that there was so much miscommunication. Maybe too many orgs involved. That Seattle fire department wasn't even informed beforehand seems clumsy.

lostlogin 7y ago
It seems like the miscommunication was intentional, but that’s just my interpretation.

jpindar 7y ago

According to the NRC notice, it's a JL Shepard Mark 168A https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2019/20190510en.html https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/... There's some pictures of a similar device here: https://www.bnl.gov/nsrl/grsf/ https://www.bnl.gov/nsrl/grsf/ It doesn't show why you'd need a grinder to take it apart, though.

jcims 7y ago

In looking for the construction of the capsule I found this article about a similar contamination issue with Cesium. Reading through the Events section that discovers theft and attempts at recovering the Cesium because of its blue glow are mind blowing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident#Events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident#Events

andbberger 7y ago
Thanks for sharing. Makes one think about all those efforts to come up with a way to make nuclear waste sites look scary for millenia. Of course, you could just bury it somewhere and not leave a mark, but that's no fun.

ISL 7y ago

Thank you, Capitol Hill Seattle (and Margo Vansynghel in particular!), for real investigative journalism that the major Seattle papers and news outlets haven't done on this story. I have minor quibbles on the facts, and with some of the tone of the story, but I'm glad to see that a journalist was able to put in the time to research and write a long-form story about which the Seattle community will care. For the commenters lining up to throw stones -- we all find in time that our own homes are made, at least in part, of glass. It is intrinsic to any accident that at least one mistake was made, but discerning how and why the mistake came to pass almost always takes longer than anyone would like. Throwing stones too early often means that they will miss their mark, becoming mistakes of their own. Edit: crediting Margo Vansynghel, the article's author

mannykannot 7y ago
Criticizing people with the use of hindsight is one thing, but if "this is unacceptably risky" would have been the right response to the planned procedure beforehand, then it is still valid afterwards.

aabajian 7y ago

I'm a radiology resident at UW and we haven't really heard much about this event. Harborview is a phenomenal hospital, and (in my opinion) the best one in the UW system. The University has a pretty good track record of admitting fault, even when it costs the system millions. See: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/uw-medicine-mistakenly-exposed-information-on-nearly-1-million-patients/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/uw-medicine... UW Medicine itself is not doing well financially (they lost $75 million last year): https://www.washington.edu/regents/files/2018/01/2018-02-B-2.pdf https://www.washington.edu/regents/files/2018/01/2018-02-B-2... Harborview was the only profitable hospital in the system. Seattle is the second-largest tech city in the nation and housing prices have grown astronomically, just like in SF. The difference between UW and, say, Stanford or UCSF, is that UW's patient population comes from the WWAMI states. They don't typically treat the young tech works, although I have had a couple older Boeing/Microsoft patients. UW/Harborview patients continue to be mostly low-income Seattlites and tertiary care/trauma patients from the WWAMI states. The UW takes care of poor/rural patients while existing in a wealthy city. It's a unique place to work. EDIT: I asked my fellow radiology residents about this event "We had a nuc med lecture on the event! It's super interesting how they managed it." "We had a separate nuclear medicine lecture on a Tuesday by the woman who helped managed the incident and is responsible for nuclear accidents." "Was on HMC call that night. Physics lecture on that was useful. Radiation --> reflex call radiologist is a real thing." "Cool. Honestly they should just reflex call them. I just paged them anyway." “3.6 roentgens per hour. Not great, not terrible.”

pbourke 7y ago
>“3.6 roentgens per hour. Not great, not terrible.” Is that a “Chernobyl” (HBO miniseries) reference? (Protip: watch it)
- glitchcrab 7y ago
  It definitely was.