OVERDUE HONOR
Berks man fights to get father recognition for heroism at harrowing time
Ronald Fountain was awakened by a phone call on March 28, 1979.
It was around 4 a.m., and the voice on the other end of the line was his boss. He told Fountain that he needed to report to the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, where he worked as an auxiliary control room operator, as quickly as possible.
Fountain had no idea what he was heading into, was unaware that an incident was taking part at the Dauphin County facility that threatened to become a full nuclear meltdown. That he was walking into the worst nuclear disaster in U.S. history.
In part because of Fountain’s decisive and selfless actions that day, a largescale tragedy was averted.
In August, Fountain, who passed away in 2020, was posthumously recognized for the part he played in averting a meltdown at TMI. State Rep. Mark Rozzi issued a citation posthumously honoring his heroic efforts.
And Fountain’s son Kevin Fountain of Mount Penn has been sharing his dad’s story in an effort to keep it from slipping through the cracks of history.
An unlikely journey to heroism
Fountain may not have seemed like a likely candidate to become a hero.
Born in Toronto, he experienced a tough childhood, his son said. His home life was far from ideal, and he ended up dropping out of ninth grade at age 15 to deliver meat pies that his mother would make.
He had a stint in the Canadian Air Force before taking a job with the Canadian National Railway. As he would many times in the future, Fountain excelled when given the opportunity.
“Smart people get elevated,” Kevin Fountain said. “That always happened to
my dad.”
Fountain eventually immigrated to the U.S., finding a job at what is now JFK Airport in New York working for the now-defunct Pan American airline. While employed there, he had a roommate who was originally from Mohnton.
Fountain would often accompany his roommate on visits to Berks County, and during one such visit he met the woman who would become his first wife.
In 1963 he moved to the Mohnton area, where Kevin was born. When Kevin was 5, he moved with his dad to West Lawn, where they lived until moving to Elizabethtown in 1976.
During his time in Berks, Fountain bounced from job to job. He worked for a time at the former Luden’s factory in Reading, and spent a stint as a manager at a fastfood restaurant.
In 1976 he took a job as a janitor at TMI, thinking the better hours and less responsibility it offered would be a relief.
“He thought it would be less stressful, that he was off the hook,” his son said.
That ended up not being the case. Fountain again found himself quickly rising through the ranks, and within three years he had been promoted to an auxiliary control room operator.
Thrown into the fire
Of the employees who worked in the control room of TMI’s Unit 2, Fountain was likely the least experienced on March 28, 1979.
Most of his colleagues had come to the power plant after working on nuclear reactors while serving in the Navy.
“His peers were all Navy nukes, and he only had an eighth grade education,” his son said. “A lot of people in his life dismissed him because of that. But he was intelligent; he would just tear through books.”
Kevin Fountain said that when his father arrived at TMI early on the morning of the accident he instantly knew something was wrong.
“It was eerie,” Kevin Fountain said. “There weren’t as many people there as usual.”
Fountain quickly learned what was going on. The Unit 2 reactor was failing, causing the release of radioactive gases and radioactive iodine.
In order to help alleviate the situation, someone had to activate a valve that was holding back water. Fountain was that someone.
His son said Fountain had to climb up 60 feet and clamber across a pipe to reach the valve, all while his respirator was running short on oxygen.
“There were alarms,
“Smart people get elevated. That always happened to my dad.”
— Kevin Fountain
lights flashing, high radiation,” Kevin Fountain said. “He could have fallen to his death.”
But Fountain quelled any fears he had and got the job done. His actions helped prevent the partial meltdown at the power plant from becoming a full meltdown.
In the weeks that followed the accident, Fountain found himself thrust into the spotlight. He rehashed his story again and again to local and national media outlets.
It took a toll on him, and he eventually withdrew from the limelight, his son said.
Fountain would later move to Phoenix, back to Pennsylvania and finally to Texas. That’s where he lived when he passed away in 2020.
He would return to the spotlight briefly in 2011, sharing his experience with the media once again during the response to the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan.
However, Fountain’s tale wasn’t told during a recent, high-profile look at the TMI disaster. He was not included in the Netflix documentary “Meltdown: Three Mile Island,” an omission that spurred his son to speak out.
“That was a moment of pride for my dad,” Kevin Fountain said. “And I couldn’t imagine my dad’s grandkids and step-grandkids and great-grandkids watching the documentary and not understanding why he wasn’t mentioned.”
So, Kevin Fountain has made it his mission to make sure his father isn’t forgotten. He’s collecting citations and awards his father received, as well as TMI memorabilia, which he hopes to eventually donate to a museum.
“I will focus on this for the rest of my life,” he said.