Editing SL-1 (section)

===Events after the power excursion===
[[File:Sl-1-ineel61-9.jpg|thumb|210px|Checking for [[radioactive contamination]] on nearby [[U.S. Route 20 in Idaho|Highway 20]]]]

Heat sensors above the reactor set off an alarm at the NRTS security facility at 9:01&nbsp;pm MST, the time of the accident. False alarms had occurred in the morning and afternoon that same day. The response team of six firemen (Ken Dearden, assistant chief; Mel Hess, lieutenant; Bob Archer; Carl Johnson; Egon Lamprecht; Gerald Stuart; Vern Conlon) arrived nine minutes later, expecting another false alarm.<ref name="berg">{{cite news |last=Berg|first=Sven|title=Nuclear accident still mystery to rescue worker |url=http://www.argusobserver.com/news/nuclear-accident-still-mystery-to-rescue-worker/article_272b80ac-57d0-5dfc-9fe7-440e6e27b6e3.html|access-date=April 6, 2015|newspaper=The Argus Observer|date=December 12, 2009}}</ref> They noticed nothing unusual at first, with only a little steam rising from the building, normal for the cold {{convert|6|F}} night. The firefighters, unable to hail anyone inside the SL-1 facility, had a security guard open the gate for them. They donned their [[Scott Air-Pak SCBA|Scott Air-Paks]], and arrived at the Support Facilities Building to investigate.

The building appeared normal, but was unoccupied. Three mugs of warm coffee were in the break room and three jackets were hanging nearby.<ref name=tucker /> They entered the reactor control room and noticed a radiation warning light. Their handheld radiation detector jumped sharply above its maximum range as they were climbing the stairs to SL-1's reactor operating floor level. This prompted a retreat for a second radiation detector.<ref name=tucker /> The second radiation detector also maxed out at its 200 [[Roentgen (unit)|röntgen]]s per hour (R/hr) scale as they ascended again.<ref name=suid>[https://flibe-energy.com/pdf/ArmyNuclearPowerProgram.pdf The Army's Nuclear Power Program: THE EVOLUTION OF A SUPPORT AGENCY] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211003182412/https://flibe-energy.com/pdf/ArmyNuclearPowerProgram.pdf |date=2021-10-03 }}, 1990, CONTRIBUTIONS IN MILITARY STUDIES, NUMBER 98.</ref> They peered into the reactor room before withdrawing.<ref name="berg" /><!-- It's apparent that the official narrative conflicts heavily with the testimony of the first responders, who describe multiple ascents up to the reactor floor, while the published narrative lists only a few. Referring to the non-governmental sources for the events here will provide much more insight into the happenings prior to the recovery of McKinley. -->

At 9:17&nbsp;pm, a [[health physics|health physicist]] arrived; he and Assistant Chief Moshberger, both wearing air tanks and masks with [[positive pressure]] in the mask to force out any potential contaminants, approached the reactor building stairs.<ref name=tucker /> Their detectors read 25 [[Roentgen (unit)|röntgen]]s per hour (R/hr) as they started up the stairs, and they withdrew.<ref name="IDO-19302">[https://web.archive.org/web/20090118182940/http://www.id.doe.gov/foia/IDO-19302.pdf IDO-19302 IDO Report on the Nuclear Accident at the SL-1 Reactor January 3, 1961 at the National Reactor Testing Station], TID-4500 (16th Ed.), SL-1 Report Task Force, US Atomic Energy Commission, Idaho Operations Office, January 1962.</ref> Finding a higher-scale [[Ionization chamber|ion chamber detector]], the pair reached the top of the stairs to look inside the reactor room for the three missing men.<ref name=McKeown /> Their Jordan Radector AG-500 meter pegged at 500 R/hr on the way up.<ref name=McKeown /><ref name=ProvePrinciple15/> They saw a dim, wet operating floor strewn with rocks and steel punchings, twisted metal, and debris scattered.

[[File:Sl-1-ineel61-667.jpg|thumb|The stretcher rig. Army volunteers from a special Chemical Radiological Unit at [[Dugway Proving Ground]] practiced before a crane inserted the rig into the SL-1 reactor building to collect the body of the man (Legg) pinned to the ceiling directly above the reactor vessel.]] Coming from nearby [[Idaho Falls]], the lead SL-1 health physicist, Ed Vallario, and Paul Duckworth, the SL-1 Operations Supervisor, arrived at SL-1 around 10:30 pm. The two donned air packs and went quickly into the administration building, through the support building, and up the stairs to the reactor floor. Halfway up the stairs, Vallario heard McKinley moaning. Finding him and a second operator on the floor who appeared to be dead, the two decided to return to the checkpoint and get help for the bleeding McKinley.<ref name=McKeown />

The two were joined by three health physicists who donned air packs and went with them back to the reactor floor. The masks on their air packs were fogging up, limiting visibility. McKinley was moving slightly, but his body was partially covered with metal debris, which the rescuers had to remove in order to carry him with a stretcher. Vallario also moved debris in his attempt to find the missing crewman. Byrnes was partially covered with steel pellets and blood.<ref name="impulse" /> Another man checked for Byrnes' pulse and announced that he was dead.<ref name=impulse />

Three men attempted to remove McKinley via the outside stairs, sending one man outside to meet them with a truck.<ref name=impulse /> But after carrying McKinley across the operating floor to the exit, they discovered equipment blocking the emergency exit door. This forced the rescuers to reverse course and use the main stairs.<ref name=impulse>[https://www.carnegiehero.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/64.winter.2021_web.pdf Impulse Issue 64, Winter 2021], Carnegie Hero Fund Commission</ref>

During the movement of McKinley, two men had their Scott Air-Paks freeze up and cease to work. Duckworth evacuated due to the malfunction, while Vallario removed his mask and breathed contaminated air to complete the evacuation of McKinley.<ref name=hero>{{Cite web |url=https://mychfc.org/hero.aspx?hero=45570 |title=Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, Vallario award |access-date=2020-11-09 |archive-date=2020-11-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109081454/https://mychfc.org/hero.aspx?hero=45570 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name=McKeown/> The rescue took about three minutes.<ref name=impulse />

The evacuation of McKinley turned quickly into a major radiological problem. McKinley was first shuttled into a panel truck and then into the back of an ambulance.<ref name=ido19300 /><ref name=McKeown/> The on-call nurse, Helen Leisen, tending to the patient in the back of the ambulance, heard at least a faint breath, perhaps his last. But before the vehicle made it to nearby Highway 20, the AEC doctor had the nurse evacuate and, entering the ambulance, found no pulse. He pronounced the man dead at 11:14 pm. The contaminated ambulance, with the body of McKinley, was driven out into the desert and abandoned for several hours.<ref name=McKeown/>

Four men had entered into the reactor building at 10:38 pm and found the third man.<ref name=ido19300 />{{rp|105}} Legg was discovered last because he was pinned to the ceiling above the reactor by a shield plug and not easily recognizable.<ref name=tucker/>

Extensive decontamination was conducted that night. About 30 of the first responders took showers, scrubbed their hands with [[potassium permanganate]], and changed their clothes.<ref name=ido19300/><ref name=McKeown/> The body in the ambulance was later disrobed and returned to the ambulance, which took it to a nearby facility for storage and autopsy.<ref name=ido19300 />

On the night of January 4, a team of six volunteers worked in pairs to recover Byrnes' body from the SL-1 operating floor. It was taken, also by ambulance, to the same facility.<ref name=ido19300 />

After four days of planning, the third body, by far the most contaminated, was retrieved. Modifications to the reactor room had to be performed by a welder inside a lead shielded box attached to a crane.<ref name="IDO-19302" /> On January 9, in relays of two at a time, a team of ten men, allowed no more than 65 seconds exposure each, used sharp hooks on the end of long poles to pull Legg's body free of the No. 7 shield plug, dropping it onto a {{convert|5|by|20|ft|adj=on}} stretcher attached to a crane outside the building.<ref name=tucker/><ref name=ProvePrinciple15 /><ref name="IDO-19302" />

Radioactive copper [[copper-64|<sup>64</sup>Cu]] from a cigarette lighter screw on McKinley and a brass watch band buckle from Byrnes both proved that the reactor had indeed gone prompt critical.<ref name=ido19300 /> This was confirmed with several other readings, including gold [[Gold-198|<sup>198</sup>Au]] from Legg's wedding ring. Nuclear accident dosimeters inside the reactor plant and particles of uranium from the victim's clothes also provided evidence of the excursion. In an unusual finding for an autopsy, hair samples taken from the head and pubis of the victims were analyzed to suggest their relative positions during the reactor excursion and to estimate the number of fissions using [[Phosphorus-32]] activity.<ref name=autopsy /> Before these discoveries of [[neutron activation|neutron-activated elements]] in the men's belongings and in their hair, scientists had doubted that a nuclear excursion had occurred, believing the reactor was inherently safe. [[Strontium-91]], a major fission product, was also found with the uranium particles.<ref name=ido19300 /> Air sampling downstream of the reactor discovered fission products, as well.<ref name=Joint61 /> All of these findings ruled out early speculation that a chemical explosion caused the accident and helped establish the energy released by the excursion.<ref name=ProvePrinciple15/>

Some sources and eyewitness accounts confuse the names and positions of each victim.<ref name=tucker/> In ''Idaho Falls: The Untold Story of America's First Nuclear Accident'',<ref name="McKeown">{{cite book |last=McKeown |first=William |title=Idaho Falls: The Untold Story of America's First Nuclear Accident |publisher=ECW Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-1-55022-562-4 |location=Toronto}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ATkLIZ06YJQC&pg=PA2]</ref> the author indicates that the rescue teams identified Byrnes as the man found still alive, believing that Legg's body was the one found next to the reactor shield and recovered the night after the accident, and that McKinley was impaled by the control rod to the ceiling directly above the reactor. The misidentification, caused by the severe blast injuries to the victims, was rectified during the autopsies conducted by [[Clarence Lushbaugh]], but this caused confusion for some time as the autopsy was classified until the 1990s.<ref name=McKeown /><ref name="Lushbaugh_Interview">{{Cite book|url=https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc672291/|title=Human radiation studies: Remembering the early years: Oral history of pathologist Clarence Lushbaugh, M.D., conducted October 5, 1994|publisher=[[United States Department of Energy]]|year=1995}}</ref>

The seven rescuers who carried McKinley and received Carnegie Hero awards from the [[Carnegie Hero Fund]] in 1962 were: Edward Vallario, SL-1 Health Physicist; Paul Duckworth, the SL-1 Operations Supervisor; Sidney Cohen, the SL-1 Test supervisor; William Rausch, SL-1 Assistant Operations Supervisor; William Gammill, the on-duty AEC Site Survey Chief; Lovell Callister, health physicist, and Delos Richards, health physics technician.<ref name=Carnegie2>[https://www.carnegiehero.org/hero-search/edward-j-vallario/ Edward J. Vallario Award] and [https://www.carnegiehero.org/from-the-archives-explosion-in-the-nuclear-reactor-room/ From the Archives: Explosion in the Nuclear Reactor Room]</ref><ref name=Carnegie>Carnegie Hero Fund Commission heroes:
[https://mychfc.org/hero.aspx?hero=45880 Duckworth award] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201114161202/https://mychfc.org/hero.aspx?hero=45880 |date=2020-11-14 }},
[https://mychfc.org/hero.aspx?hero=45881 Cohen award] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201116214321/https://mychfc.org/hero.aspx?hero=45881 |date=2020-11-16 }},
[https://mychfc.org/hero.aspx?hero=45882 Rausch award] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201116043906/https://mychfc.org/hero.aspx?hero=45882 |date=2020-11-16 }},
[https://mychfc.org/hero.aspx?hero=45570 Vallario award (with details of the event)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109081454/https://mychfc.org/hero.aspx?hero=45570 |date=2020-11-09 }},
[https://mychfc.org/hero.aspx?hero=45883 Gammill award (some details)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109090945/https://mychfc.org/hero.aspx?hero=45883 |date=2020-11-09 }},
[https://mychfc.org/hero.aspx?hero=45944 Callister award] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109112533/https://mychfc.org/hero.aspx?hero=45944 |date=2020-11-09 }},
[https://mychfc.org/hero.aspx?hero=45943 Richards award] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201116105502/https://mychfc.org/hero.aspx?hero=45943 |date=2020-11-16 }}.</ref>