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• A new plant opens in Rhode Island, designed to get enriched uranium out ofused uranium products
• This plant was using "all the latest technology"
• Since it was recently opened it had only processed uranium-Iaden liquids called “pickle liquor.” -
• 2 days before the accident there had been a false alarm
• Peabody was washing equipment when the radiation alarm sounded
• All the workers ran out scared, but it turned out to be just water spilled on the alarm's electrical panel, shorting it out -
• The same day as the false alarm, black goo began appearing near the end of the processing line
• The workers figured it was an organic compound, but didn't know what it was from
• By the next day, the problem had gotten so bad that some equipment had to be shut down and disassembled for cleaning. -
• The plant was designed to take uranium scrap, dissolve it in acid, and pass it through a series of processes
• The goal was to recover the enriched uranium it contained
• There was no nuclear reactor, only chemical processes -
•At about 6:00 P.M. Friday, Robert Peabody went to wash the week’s trichloroethane in the mixing vat upstairs
• He grabbed a bottle filled with bright yellow liquid and carried it up the stairs. The tag that identified the contents must have slipped out of its rubber bands: it was later found on the floor in the stairway.
• The bottle did not contain trichloroethane. It contained a very high concentration of enriched uranium, drained from the system during the black goo crisis. -
• Robert Peabody, 37 years old goes to work at the United Nuclear Corporation Fuels Recovery Plant
• The plant is located near Charleston, Rhode Island
• This is Robert Peabody's second job as he is providing for his wife and 9 children -
• The result of the cleaning was a collection of different containers, each holding an item or substance that was to some degree radioactive.
• There were identical plastic bottles, some filled with highly concentrated uranium solution, and some filled with very weak solution
• They were labeled with their contents, but the labels did not stick well to the bottles, so they were held in place with rubber bands, which were also subject to deterioration because of exposure to solvents. -
• All the alarms in the building started going off when he poured the uranium into the mixer
• A flash of blue light came from the vat and hot, glowing liquid that splashed as high as the 12-foot ceiling
• Peabody was knocked down, he got up and ran from the room, removing his clothing as he ran to try and get away from the radioactive material that was on him -
• Peabody falls to the ground, vomitting and bleeding from his ears and nose
• He lay there in a blanket, confused, with terrible cramps in his abdomen, he spoke very little
• The ambulance arrived at about 7:00 P.M., loaded up the injured man, and drove to the hospital -
• There were none of the secondary symptoms often associated with radiation exposure, loss of hair, blindness, because they did not have time to start
• He died on Sunday night, 49 hours after the accident
• Calculations based on analysis of his gold wedding ring, tissue samples showed that he had received more than 700 rems of radiation, the equivalent of 700,000 chest Xrays. Robert Peabody had been exposed to more radiation than anyone outside of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. -
• Peabody's wife, Anna Peabody recieved 22,000 dollars for settlement of the incident
• Anna Peabody got throat cancer, which she believes to be the result of the time she spent with her dying, radioactive husband.