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Maybe the US will let Denmark keep this part of Greenland.
Two Danes claim they developed cancer after helping to clean up plutonium-contaminated snow and ice after an American bomber crash in Greenland six decades ago.
Jeffrey Carswell and Heinz Eriksen, now in their 80s, were among 1,000 civilians who answered the call for help in January 1968, after an American B-52 Stratofortress carrying four hydrogen bombs caught fire and crashed in the North Star Bay.
The disaster, about seven miles from the Thule Air Force base, killed one of the seven-member crew. The 1.1 megaton hydrogen bombs aboard didn’t detonate, but researchers believe the outer coverings exploded, releasing radiation about 300 yards on either side of the plane’s path.
While most of the bombs were destroyed by the fire, at least one couldn’t be accounted for, according to the BBC.
The crash “released trillions of respirable particles of weapons grade plutonium into the air, settling on the sea-ice and snow of the crash site and beyond,” the pair said in court papers seeking compensation from the US government.
Carswell, a shipping clerk, and Eriksen, a fireman at the base, took part in Operation Crested Ice, which carted contaminated snow and ice to a “sheltered structure,” with workers pouring the toxic substance into 217 tanks, about 25,000-gallons each, which were then welded shut and sent stateside for remediation, they said in court papers.
Eriksen often worked in hangars with floors covered in water from melted, contaminated snow and ice and had put out fires from the welding which sealed the plutonium-infused snow inside metal tanks, according to court papers.
Carswell said he “frequently went to the tank farm” and traveled near the crash site, court documents showed.
The two men have battled for recognition and money from the US government for decades, after Carswell was diagnosed in the 1980s with stomach and esophageal cancer and had several surgeries, and Eriksen had his cancerous tumor-ridden left kidney removed in 2005.
But even though Americans who fell ill after handling the plutonium-riddled material were later compensated under different federal actions, Carswell, Eriksen and others Danish civilians — Greenland is a Danish territory — have been left out in the cold.
“We are fighting against corruption, lies and deliberate, very slow treatment of anything we ask them
to consider – probably hoping we will get tired and stop, or that eventually the ‘problem’ goes away
because we are no longer around,” Carswell, now 82, said.
“But they should know by now that we will not go away.”
The pair recently filed in Manhattan Federal Court to enforce Freedom of Information Act requests against Kevin Dressman, who was the Department of Energy’s director of health and safety, and National Institute for Occupational Safety Director Grady Calhoun.
They accuse Dressman and Calhoun of secretly conferring on their failed June 2023 bid for inclusion in the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, which offers benefits to federal employees who developed certain cancers from their work.
“I worked at Thule Air Base for 5 years, 2 days and 1 1⁄2 hours from July 1966 to July 1971, when I migrated to Australia,” said the father of two, who recently published a book, “Greenland – B52 Radiation Disaster.”
The civilians working at Thule Air Force Base, who were asked to volunteer for the effort as part of their regular jobs, “were told that there was no radiation danger, so they unwittingly inhaled the toxic radiation,” said their attorney Ian Anderson.
The two “are a few of the survivors,” about 400 of whom had died by the 1980s, said Anderson who estimated “only a handful” of the workers are still alive.
“These Danish workers voluntarily came to the assistance of the US in its time of need, when manpower was otherwise unavailable due to the ongoing Vietnam war,” he said.
President Trump continues his push for the United States to acquire Greenland from Denmark, but Carswell claimed the American government “cannot be trusted and there should be no consideration given to any attempts to cooperate with them.”
The pair have been fighting for recognition from America for decades. But in 2021, a judge dismissed their case on appeal, finding in favor of medical experts who said their cancers didn’t stem from plutonium, which typically cause lung, liver and bone cancers, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
The Department of Energy and National Institute for Occupational Safety didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
English (US)