Watch CBS News

Worker Dies In Accident At Three Mile Island

MIDDLETOWN, Pa. (AP) — A worker at the deactivated Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania died in an accident at the plant last week, officials said.

The contract worker was fatally injured at about 11 a.m. Friday "while unloading equipment from a truck at Three Mile Island," an Exelon Generation representative said in a statement.

"We send our condolences to the individual's family, friends, and colleagues," the company statement said.

The company reported the death to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as a "material handling accident." Londonderry Township emergency medical and fire personnel responded to render aid and "declared the individual deceased" upon arrival, the company said.

"The fatality was work-related and the individual was outside of the Radiological Controlled Area," the Exelon report to the commission said.

The name of the contract worker and other details about the accident weren't immediately reported.

The Three Mile Island plant's Unit 1 permanently shut down at the end of September 2019. Since then, the plant's components, systems and buildings have been in the process of decommissioning and dismantlement, with cooled fuel to be placed in stainless steel canisters and transported to a spent fuel storage area by next year. The Unit 2 reactor partially melted down in March 1979 and has been shut down since then.

(Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.