In the spring of 1979, we were living on the campus of Elizabethtown College in Lancaster county. Kim was in the midst of her final fieldwork experience in her Occupational Therapy education and Dave had graduated in May of 1978 and was working full time, night shift with the campus Public Safety Department.
On the morning of March 28, Dave was finishing up his 10 hour shift and Kim was well into her day as a OT student at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Lancaster when the word came out over the news (emergency broadcast) that there was a dangerous situation at TMI in Middletown, PA. As it became clear that a nuclear meltdown was becoming a real possibility, Elizabethtown College decided to evacuate all students out of the area and was using the Public Safety staff to do so. They equipped the Safety officers with pocket Geiger counters from the Physics Dept. so they could monitor the level of radiation and potential safety or risk of the surrounding environment. They were also given the order to patrol and protect the campus while monitoring the level of radiation in the air with permission to also leave if the levels reached a point where it might put the health of the officers at risk.
The students were told to stay away until further notice
Dave’s night shift was extended throughout the day and in the midst of the evacuation process, he called Kim in Lancaster to let her know about the gravity of the situation and to stay put in Lancaster until further notice. So as worried as Kim was the rest of the work day, having difficulty concentrating on her tasks as a student in the locked mental health unit, she heeded her husband’s wishes and after work went directly to Park City to shop until it closed!
In the meantime, Dave and the rest of Public Safety successfully evacuated all the students from the college, all the while watching the gauges on the Geiger counter to see if they were moving into the danger zones. By the end of the day, all students safely situated outside the radioactive risk zone, Dave called Kim and told her to come home and she did.
The students were told to stay away until further notice and by the weekend they had permission to return to the college and headed back to classes that following Monday. It was exciting to realize that we lived through the first nuclear power plant accident in the US and seemed no worse the wear for it.
Our main concern was for the future when we were ready to start a family – would we be able to conceive and if so, would our babies have normal growth and development in the womb as well as after birth. 6 years later we had our first child, a boy and 3 years later, a little girl, and both were perfect. We were so grateful and blessed! And that is our story of how we survived TMI to tell about it!
David and Kim