Posted on 03/08/2016 5:29:21 AM PST by JoeProBono
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla., - A scuba diver in Florida is suing a utility company after he was sucked into a quarter-mile-long pipe that took him inside a nuclear power plant.
Christopher Le Cun said he was scuba diving off the coast of Hutchinson Island with friend Robert Blake last summer when the pair went down to investigate three large shadows underneath a yellow buoy.
"I swam right up to this big structure and it looks like a building underwater. I felt a little bit of current. All of a sudden it got a little quicker and I said, 'this ain't right, this ain't right,'" Le Cun told WPTV.
Blake said Le Cun got "sucked in like a wet noodle."
Blake returned to the surface to get help from the duo's friends and family on a boat, while Le Cun was sucked down one of three 16-foot-wide intake pipes.
The diver said he was in the tube for about five minutes before he saw the light of the surface he would soon reach.
"All of a sudden it looks like a match, out in the distance, just the littlest bit of what you've ever seen. When it gets a little bigger, then a little bigger. Then all of a sudden just, poof, daylight. Fish everywhere, crystal-clear water the sun is shining and I'm like, 'is this heaven?'" Le Cun said.
Le Cun said he shouted for help and was assisted by a confused employee who asked how he got into the plant.
Blake and Le Cun said they did not see any warnings anywhere in the area, but an FPL spokesman said there is writing on the buoy reading, "stay back 100 feet."
Le Cun is now suing plant operator Florida Power and Light, alleging negligence for inadequate safety precautions.
"Nothing is more important safety at our St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plants, which is a reason that we have a protective over the intake piping. The diver intentionally swam into one of the intake pipes after bypassing a piece of equipment to minimize the entry of objects," FPL said in a statement.
Le Cun is not the first scuba diver to take a wild ride through the plant's intake pipes -- William Lamm had a similar experience in June 1989.
"I thought I was dead," the then-45-year-old told UPI in a 1989 interview. "It was darker than any dark I have ever seen. I tumbled and bounced all over the sides of the pipe."
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Who in their right mind goes scuba diving near a power plant intake pipe?
But they need a grate on that pipe.
Isn’t this how the Incredible Shrinking Man became Tidy Bowl Man?
IF THIS IS TRUE, that pretty much settles it for me. He can describe the horror and dread all he wants but in the end, he went somewhere he should have known he wasn't supposed to be.
Having friends named Robert Blake seems to be a hazard. Just kidding!
Sounds like a candidate for this year’s Darwin Award, only in this case he survived.
Thanks, Dept. of Energy and Hutchison nuke facility, for announcing to the world that any Jihadi with a bomb can go SCUBA diving here and get inside the facility, and there's nothing you've done about it in the 14-and-a-half years since 9/11.
With a grate on the pipe, the diver would not have been able to get off grate. Can’t fix stupid.
Give him $100,000 for discovering a HUGE security gap in the nuclear power plant’s defenses...
If the suction was that strong there, a grate would only guarantee the next person to dive too close would get sucked against the grate--and possibly be there long enough to run out of air.
If the guy got pulled through and survived that unhurt, the design is good.
But the most important question is...
DID HE DEVELOP ANY SUPER POWERS????
In spite of “Globull warming”, the oceans around that area got viciously cold a few years ago.
Some very smart manatees were able to survive by hanging around the OUTFLOW pipe, which was warmer.
Smart Manatees.
The place to hang out is where the current goes AWAY from the Nuclear Power Plant.
I call BS. What created the current? If it was pumped water he would have gone through a pump and have been ground up. If you look at the picture on the left you can clearly see that is an outfall letting water back out of the plant
He’ll get some money. Because in America, no matter how stupid you are, no matter how reckless you are, if a big corporation is involved, they are at fault.
ITs hard to guarantee against the stupidity of people
They need a grate, but it must be far enough away that the current is NOT strong enough to suck you against it.
This IS a huge security breach- and there should be a grate
I’m going to guess that FL is a contributory negligence state. That’s how he gets money.
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