Posted on 12/24/2013 10:47:29 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Navy sailors have radiation sickness after Japan rescue
By Laura Italiano and Kerry Murtha
December 22, 2013 | 6:40am
Navy sailor Lindsay Cooper knew something was wrong when billows of metallic-tasting snow began drifting over USS Ronald Reagan.
“I was standing on the flight deck, and we felt this warm gust of air, and, suddenly, it was snowing,” Cooper recalled of the day in March 2011 when she and scores of crewmates watched a sudden storm blow toward them from the tsunami-torn coast of Fukushima, Japan.
The tall 24-year-old with a winning smile didn’t know it then, but the snow was caused by the freezing Pacific air mixing with a plume of radioactive steam from the city’s shattered nuclear reactor
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Or that, even if the plume models were bad, for the hour it would take to change course, the crew didn’t hang protective gear? It’s one of the important military assets in the world. It designed to operate in the even of a nuclear war. Weapons aside, it has it’s own nuclear reactor. I guess the Navy just isn’t ready for radioactive contingencies?
I have no doubt that if crewmen were working outside with scarves wrapped around their faces, it because something smelled bad, or if there was a hazard, someone who went to school for engineering, physics, medicine or some combination thereof knew more people who get sick from heat exhaustion wearing an APR mask, than from what was in the air.
When the ships detectors began reading higher than normal readings, they should have taken evasive manuevers.
The navy can hand out any malarkey they wish regarding the setup and deployment of radiation detectors, but I'm not buying it. These guys would have had these in place well before arriving in the area.
The FR "experts" told us this would be no more radiation than you'd get from an afternoon on the beach.
If your world view involves abortion for population control, anyway, then what difference do women make? To the Left they are equally expendable - if not more so.
We should have been building safe thorium reactors all along, but they don't produce any byproducts needed for weaponry. Now China and several other countries are going full speed on thorium technology - meaning they will have abundant cheap energy while Americans are busy paying carbon taxes to "save the planet."
What a sorry nation we've become that we're so lazy that we can't be bothered to flip the ON switch on our detection equipment. Or was this another stand down order.
There have been two previous threads on this that I know of. The comments on those are much more technical and not as emotional as the ones on this post.
Also realize the NY Post is a tabloid and their use of the words "Radiation Sickness" is pretty cavalier.
Agree - we have always had warriors that knew they might be used up in the cause of the day, but we no longer have leadership that appreciates and loves our warriors for what they are so willing to sacrifice - no excuse for this fiasco.
Thank you for that link. I’ve been following this since I read an article about it on the 12th. The reactor damage occurred 3 years ago and it hasn’t been fixed. They sure managed to keep a lid on what has happened to our sailors for a very long time and that infuriates me more than anything. What is being done for them and their families???? Makes me sick. Sorry for the rant but I am heartsick.
The engineroom has airbore radiation detectors. On a submarine there are three. They will go off even for temperature inversions. Anyway, these would have picked up the airborne radiation.
Some how I doubt that is an accurate statement of the cause of the exposure. And it may be that the exposure was not as serious as implied.
Has been quite a while since the incident. It has been reported elsewhere in the news. Some of that reporting is less dramatic.
Now, if there is in fact a pattern of exposure related illnesses it should be admitted. If not, it should be exposed as overstatement.
My credibility sniffer is going off about the article after reading some other coverage of it.
The National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center probably has plume models of the event. A FOIA request should be made. DOE/NNSA had people on the ground in Japan. What data did they collect?
I’m sure the detectors are on constantly on those things. Inside and out. They simply aren’t going to admit what they say for political reasons unless it’s so high that there will be hair-loss type acute sickness.
Thanks for the link. That's the first article I've seen that is actually balanced, including not just the mystery illness claims from the plaintiffs and their lawyer, but also included statements from health physicists and medical toxicologists who point out the problem with those claims--the time period between the alleged exposures and the reported symptoms. Two years later, they're claiming to be experiencing acute radiation sickness (for which it is far too late) as well as radiation-induced cancers (for which it is far too early).
The three previous articles I've seen posted here (including one from FOX) read like sensationalized scandal rag pieces that were so one-sided that they could have been written by the plaintiff's lawyer.
I'm a little disappointed to find so many Freepers willing to take these stories at face value. I recognize that most here don't have any background in health physics, but it strains credibility to believe that a nuclear powered ship, responding to a radiological disaster wouldn't monitor radiological conditions and personnel exposures.
What a sham, but on the brighter side ryan stabbed you in the back and wishes you a happy holiday since the military bans the word CHRISTMAS.
And what about the EPA that took radiation air monitors in the US offline at that time for “maintenance”...
bkmk
I always thought that was a grim film.
Without knowing what they were exposed to, comparisons to previous radiation exposure are meaningless. And previous studies, such as Chernobyl, have accuracy problems because the Soviets put a secrecy lid on Chernobyl related illness the first 2 years.
We now know the following happened. This is reported from Tepco. Reactor 1-3 received no cooling after the batteries died. The fire engine cooling did not work due to earthquake damage to internal pipes. The reactors were melting down and all Tepco could do was vent. They lied about that to everyone.
The USS Ronald Reagan traveled right into the exhaust vents of three melting down reactors.
The captain of the Reagan asked the US high command if Japan was venting when he saw the readings.
Don't know about EPA but lots of radiation sensors were online including those operated by my state (Washington), as well as DOE and private systems based at Hanford and Idaho National Laboratories.
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