What a bullshit article - very misleading. This sentence is outright false:
a worker slipped into what is essentially a pool of uranium
They use water in those pools because it’s very effective for cool, and also super good at shielding the radiation. The pools are like 30’ deep, and you only need like 6’ of water to block basically all the radiation. If the guy fell in and was under water near the surface, he was probably getting less radiation exposure than if he had just been standing outside in the sun. He “somehow survived” because he wasn’t in any danger.
There’s either an XKCD or MinutePhysics video out there that illustrates this concept put there. I don’t remember which, just that I watched it recently. The punchline was that if you were to attempt to swim in a radiation pool you’d more likely end up dead from being shot by a guard than by the radiation
Looks like XKCD. Good memory.
Reactor pools are surprisingly safe. Water acts as a strong insulator for radiation, and you have to dive down pretty deep to reach dangerous levels of radiation. It’s not a good idea to jump in, but people do fall into the pools and usually survive.