Man killed while working at Three Mile Island

Rachel McDevitt

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I report on energy and the environment for StateImpact Pennsylvania at WITF.

My work focuses on responses and solutions to climate change in the state legislature and communities around the state. I trace my interest in these issues back to my time as a Girl Scout and this episode of Rocko’s Modern Life.

I look forward to winter just for the chance to ski a few times each season. I try to keep myself from doom-scrolling on my phone by keeping my hands busy knitting and learning to play the piano.

I grew up in Cambria County, Pa. and graduated from Temple University. I started at WITF just after Christmas in 2014.

Brett Sholtis / WITF

Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, which closed Sept. 20, 2019.

September 13, 2021 | 4:54 PM

A man working at the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant outside Harrisburg died late last week.

TMI Unit 1 owner Exelon Generation said a contract worker was fatally injured around 11 a.m. Friday in an accident while unloading equipment from a truck. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Dauphin County officials identified the man as Michael Miller, 55, of Alabama. Spokesman Brett Hambright said Miller’s family has been notified and an autopsy is scheduled for Tuesday.

Miller was an employee of NAC International, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

In a report to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Exelon noted the incident happened outside of the “Radiological Controlled Area” at the site.

In a statement, the company said it was “deeply saddened” by the death and that it sends “condolences to the individual’s family, friends, and colleagues.”

TMI Unit 1 shut down in September 2019.

TMI Unit 2, owned by a subsidiary of EnergySolutions, is the site of the country’s most serious nuclear accident at a commercial facility. It closed after the partial meltdown in 1979.

EnergySolutions contracts with Exelon for maintenance and surveillance activities.