Your Day Sucks: Getting Sucked Into a Intake Pipe

and that's why we can't have nice things....
 
He's suing them?! Give me a frickin break.
 
If there wasn't a propeller, how did they draw the suction? Siphon and levels?


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I could be completely wrong but I inferred a large reservoir connected to the ocean via pipe at one end and the turbine at the other. That would allow things to get sucked in and trapped for periodic cleaning at a more convenient location than a half mile offshore.
 
He is very lucky. We've had divers get curious/to close to ships in port and get sucked into the sea chests. They don't live.
 
I recall back in the early 80s hearing about a crewman getting sucked into the intake of an F-16 at an Air Force base out west somewhere. Supposedly flip him so that he entered the intake feet first and some kind of vertical bar inside the intake split him between his legs and killed him. The pilot was so shook up he couldn't fly for awhile. That's what we heard, don't know if it was true.
 
I'm not going to comment on this diver, but "delta p" incidents are a leading cause of death among professional divers who are well trained. Scary stuff...

 
Lawsuit is total BS. I work at a nuclear plant and recently litigated the intake structure for our plant. Not only do we have multiple screens of very small openings, our intake velocity is very low - below intake structure velocities set by the National Marine Fisheries Service so we don't suck in fish and other acqutatic wildlife much less human beings. While I don't have the details of the intake at either Turkey Point or St. Lucie (both Florida plants) they both have intake screens and the intake velocity can't be very significant. Intake structures are monitored by both the NRC and various state agencies along with the National Marine Fisheries Services to prevent harm to fish and others. Each plant reports annually how many fish they entrain or entrap. That said, it does make me wonder how he got into the intake piping.
 
rwellner98 said:
I'm not going to comment on this diver, but "delta p" incidents are a leading cause of death among professional divers who are well trained. Scary stuff...
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I was always told to avoid pool drains when I was little because of this issue. I've noticed that newer pool drains aren't just screens over a hole anymore, but slotted covers with a solid top.

My friend who use to work at the local dammed lake showed me their full proof current indicator. It was a string with a small washer tied at the bottom. It did its job quite well.
 
Ugh - It was probably marked somewhere, too, wasn't it?

On the KS Turnpike, about a year ago, there was a fatality after some heavy rains. There was a low-spot on the highway that flash-flooded. This was one of those 500-year things. It wasn't the "raging torrent" type of flood, just that water levels rose quickly and covered the highway. A car hydroplaned off the road. There was a gully that led to a culvert under that section of the highway. The driver was trying to climb out of his car and other drivers pulled over, but couldn't do anything. He and his car were sucked into the culvert and pulled under the highway.

Water can have some serious force.

http://www.kansas.com/news/local/article27402568.html
 
We recently had a worker get his clothing caught/drawn into a concrete pump (giant screw). I still get shivers when I think of it.
 
ARFlyer said:
I was always told to avoid pool drains when I was little because of this issue. I've noticed that newer pool drains aren't just screens over a hole anymore, but slotted covers with a solid top.
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Those screeens in commercial pools are the result of a number of horrendous accidents. In one case, a little kid in Minnesota (Abigail Taylor) had most of her bowel sucked out by a pool drain. She lived another year and received a bowel transplant, but eventually died. There is a federal law on bottom drains which was passed after one of James Bakers grandkids drowned.
 
I can't imagine being that stupid and then trying to sue someone else because of it. .
 
Sheesh, not a good way to die.
I was picking hops with my college chums one summer and a pretty girl walked by the line of "hooked" stalks and one of the wires caught her gorgeous hair. (she was not wearing a helmet)
The machine was about to pull the stalk in and "comb" it with big metal rakes. I thought of running to the red button to shut the line down but that would have taken me longer and the machine winds down slowly. Instead, I jumped to her, pulled out my clippers and clipped the wire just as it was going into the machine. I walked her out of there, she was shaking. Not a good way to die either. I untangled the twisty wire from her hair and really hoped for some kind of a reward. I guess I wasn't handsome enough back then. :D
But then again, if I ended up with her, I wouldn't have met my awesome wife. :) Can't argue with that!
 
If you go dig into the story, he and his buddy TIED OFF THEIR BOAT to the WARNING BOUY above a massive "building sized" structure underwater (his words) and decided to go swim down to it and jack around.

The "building sized" structure (the largest one is 70' across and that's the one he willingly swam into) and 16' diameter pipe running from the structure in-land, was between the open ocean floor off-shore and a holding pond that was below sea level, directly on-shore and visible at a nuclear power plant, from where they moored the boat to the bouy.

Waaaaaaaay at the other end of the holding pond were the pumps for the plant. Nowhere near this thing. The pond is for cooling, filtration, and allowing crud to settle out, as well as a home to fish and other marine wildlife that swim through the pipe and hang out in there. The reservoir works by gravity and pressure. The intakes are off shore a ways to get deeper and cooler water.

He had to swim under support columns 6" high and 20-25' into the structure toward a 16" hole, and get close enough to it to get caught in the current. He's pretty much just a poorly trained, SCUBA diving, idiot.

http://imgur.com/a/Ve4to - an overhead photo showing how massive they are, and diagrams of the intake system. You can even see the warning bouy on the surface in the aerial/satellite shot.

People from the Internet have lamented that he was able to "get inside the plant" by swimming through the pipe. Others who live in the area point out that Ocean Drive and a bridge with a public road, cross the holding pond, and you could get out of a car and walk down and jump in if you like. You're not truly "inside the plant" there.

As someone else put it in a non-aviation forum... "Divers know you don't find random yellow warning bouys [anchored over "building sized" structures] in the open ocean."
 
The article doesn't really say how it works. Is water drawn in by tidal action? If not there would have to be some form of pumping system.
 
Sac Arrow said:
The article doesn't really say how it works. Is water drawn in by tidal action? If not there would have to be some form of pumping system.
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>>>
The feed of these pipes is propelled by gravity, not by a pump in this stage. There is a free flow of water through to the Intake Canal, where the diver was recovered. Along that canal, there are multiple filtering stages and a fair bit of distance before the actual intake pumps (which are screened) that propel the flow.
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My guess:

Water flows through the intakes, travels along the canal, into the reactor facility, and comes out hot (warm). It cools down on the outbound side of the plant before being pumped or released back into the ocean.

power-plant.jpg
 
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I see. Okay that makes sense.In that case, it doesn't sound like a ride though a big long tube of water is really that big of a deal. I would find the presence of fish flopping around in the water at the other end comforting. Unless they are sharks and barracuda, in which case I wouldn't find it comforting.
 
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