Brookhaven Lab worker hurt in 16-foot fall

A man working to dismantle a decommissioned reactor at Brookhaven National Laboratory was injured Tuesday when he fell 16 feet from a personal lift, Suffolk County police and a lab spokesman said.

Lab spokesman Peter Genzer said the incident was under investigation. The worker was tested for radiation and was not contaminated, Genzer said.

In an afternoon news release, the lab said the "cause of the fall is not known at this time."

Genzer said the worker, a contractor whose identity was not released, was "alert and talking" after the fall. He was taken to Stony Brook University Medical Center by ambulance.

The incident was reported in an emergency call at 11:48 a.m.

Genzer said the man was working at the graphite research reactor on the Brookhaven property in Upton. The reactor was the first one at the site, commissioned in the 1940s, Genzer said.

It was decommissioned in the late 1960s, Genzer said, and the graphite, in the form of a large cube about 20 feet in length, height and width, had been removed. He said the radioactive fuel also had been removed.

In its statement, the lab said the contract worker "was scanned at the scene for radiation as per standard operating procedures, and that scan was negative."

With Patrick Whittle