Who needs action films when there are real superheroes like Jimmy Carter among us?
A viral Twitter thread reminds the world that 39th US President James Earl Carter Jr., now 97, Ottawa, Ontario, at the age of 28, actually saved from nuclear destruction on December 12, 1952.
“Do you remember the very first meltdown in the world? Back then, the US President, an expert in nuclear physics, heroically sank himself into the reactor and saved Ottawa, Canada’s capital? ”Asked Canadian physicist Professor Jeff Lundeen of the University of Ottawa in his now viral thread, originally published Tuesday , but officially trending two days later.
“Sounds like a chunky action movie, but it actually happened!”
Lundeen’s revealing tweet to his humble 1,078 followers now has nearly 50,000 likes, more than 20,000 retweets, and hundreds of cheerfully shocked comments. He added data from the Ottawa Historical Society and an excerpt from a 2011 report documenting Carter’s exploits, and followed several other media sources that tell the historical story.
As the story goes, the Plains, Georgia native planned his entire life to join the Navy – and did so when he was appointed to the Naval Academy in 1942. After graduating with honors, Carter spent two years serving on a ship before enrolling with the Submarine Force. After a series of moves and promotions, the young lieutenant applied to join Captain Hyman G. Rickover’s nuclear sub-program, where they developed the world’s first nuclear submarines.
As president, he visited Three Mile Island there after the accident. When a reporter asked if he thought it was too dangerous, he said, “No, if it was too dangerous, they would have sent the vice-president.” True story. He’s not scared and has a great sense of humor.
– Elizabeth (@Lizzabiza) December 16, 2021
Rickover then sent Carter to work for the US Atomic Energy Commission, where he served temporarily with the Naval Reactors Branch. Meanwhile, a few months later, an accidental power surge at Chalk River Laboratories in Ottawa caused fuel rods in a nuclear research reactor to burst and melt – risking a complete meltdown.
It was the first of its kind, and Carter’s team of 23 men were hired to clean it up.
In a scene straight out of modern blockbusters, the brave men would have to descend into the core with rope and pulley to dismantle the reactor bolt by bolt. The lab had set up a double reactor as a training ground for Carter’s team that would only get one chance at reality. Each man had to descend into the core and complete his high-flying tasks in 90-second bursts as exposure to toxic radiation in the reactor posed a high risk to his long-term health.
Her plan went off without a hitch. The core was shut down and then rebuilt. From there, Carter became an engineering officer on the USS Seawolf, one of the first submarines to run on nuclear power. In 1961 he retired from the Navy and the reserves and ran for his first political office in 1963.
For those who admire the one-year-old Democratic president, Lundeen’s tweet was just another reminder of Carter’s selfless service – and good jokes.
One top Twitter response included a quote from the president visiting Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island power plant during its disastrous partial meltdown in 1979.
When asked by the media whether he thought it was too dangerous to visit the radioactive site, he is reported to have joked: “No, if it was too dangerous, they would have sent the vice president.”
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