“Unraveling the Mysteries: How Fire, Ice, and Plutonium Could Redefine Our Understanding of the Universe”
“I was never given any protective equipment; I just went out in whatever you normally wore at work. You had this special team with the airmen in full protective equipment climbing on top of these 50,000 gallon drums and containers and I was down there, on a daily basis, (with) no protective equipment.”
Like many of the workers, Carswell later developed various mysterious illnesses:
“I was referred to a specialist and they discovered I had a particular condition that needed to be operated [on] straight away…My doctor said that my particular condition was caused by exposure to radiation and plutonium.As we found out when we started talking to colleagues, a lot of those of us who were there at the time had problems of various types, all sorts of shocking problems that is, for sure, linked to what happened at Thule.”
Indeed, in 1986 Danish prime Minister Poul Schlüter commissioned the Danish Institute for Clinical Epidemiology to conduct a health impact study of Danish decontamination workers at Thule. The Institute’s final report, released one year later, concluded that cancer rates among these workers was 40% higher than those who had visited Thule before and after the crash, and 50% higher than the general Danish population. While the Institute could not definitively link these cancers to radiation exposure at Thule, these findings prompted 200 former cleanup workers to sue the United States government for damages in 1987. While the lawsuit was ultimately unsuccessful, it did lead the government to declassify thousands of documents, triggering a chain of revelations that would eventually lead to Thulegate. It also prompted the various branches of the United States Military to carry out regular health monitoring of personnel who come into contact with radioactive material.
