Word: flashful
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...tank. It was a routine part of a process to recover plutonium from waste materials. During his ten years at Los Alamos he had done the same chore about 75 times. This time was different. When he turned on the stirring apparatus, a bright blue flash bloomed out of the tank...
Roderick Day, a technician working in the next room, saw the flash, felt a slight shock, heard a slight noise, then a louder, rumbling one. He dashed into the tank room, saw that Kelley had run outdoors and collapsed a few feet from the door. "I'm burning up!" cried Kelley. Day carried him to a shower room, pulling some master switches on the way, and showered him with water. Then an ambulance took him to the hospital...
Nothing could be done for Technician Kelley. He had received between 6,000 and 18,000 rem (roentgen equivalent man) of radiation, at least ten times the dose that is generally considered deadly. Nine hours after the accident, Kelley became coherent enough to explain that he mistook the blue flash for a short circuit in the stirrer switch. A day later he died. Dr. Thomas Shipman, head of the laboratory's health division, said that the radiation had done fatal damage to his central nervous system...
...original cause of the accident is still unknown. Presumably, enough plutonium somehow got into the tank to support a fission chain reaction. The resulting burst of radiation ionized the air and caused the blue flash. The reacting liquid probably boiled, separating the plutonium and stopping the reaction in a few seconds. That was too late for Kelley...
...tossed out the ticket-punching system that has become a symbol of the commuter. So many commuters were slipping past the conductor because he was too busy to punch their tickets on crowded trains that the North Western was done out of $580,000 yearly. Commuters will now carry "flash" tickets, which clip to the back of the seat, are color-coded so the conductor can tell at a glance where each rider must...