“To the Editor:

It is absolutely infuriating and probably lethal to read the vested rationalizations for Indian Point, as in the extensive article you published by Joseph McCourt, in the Feb. 8 issue of the Inquirer.

My professional experience directly contradicts Entergy’s supposed tight monitoring of employees. The single most psychotic patient appearing in my extensive psychiatric practice in the past two years was an engineer employed by Indian Point! This potentially dangerous patient, I later learned, committed suicide in the most violent manner.

The terrifying implications of having such a mentally ill, out-of-control individual working in a nuclear power plant stagger even the most limited imagination.

More bewildering is Mr. McCourt’s self-serving assumption that Indian Point should be allowed to continue to exist because it is no more dangerous than a nuclear attack on New York. We continue to bury our heads in a nuclear sand!

Many years ago, as a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility I attended a very sad meeting on nuclear triage preparations for New York hospitals.

There I learned that no triage was really possible in a nuclear disaster because the asphalt roads would be boiling and the plastic in the steering wheel would melt as far away as Philadelphia. And this was with the older, far less lethal, nuclear bombs.

Given these facts, it is foolish and dangerous to continue to believe that any evacuation plan can suffice to protect our children, our families or our homes. Evacuate over molten highways?

Perhaps Mr. McCourt believes we should reinstitute the nuclear safety plans of the government in the ’50s, when children were either provided a shovel to dig a small trench or asked to assume a safe position with their heads between their legs.

Certainly, if Indian Point is allowed to continue to exist because of a potentially lethal increase in our electric bills, we are being misled to again keep sticking our heads in the wrong place!

JOSEPH T. MARTORANO, M.D., P.C.”