Ex-Mountie who guarded radioactive Soviet satellite prevails in fight for compensation while battling terminal cancer

Decades after a nuclear-powered Soviet satellite fell from the skies and crashed in the Canadian Arctic, one of the RCMP officers who guarded it will receive compensation because radiation from it likely caused his rare cancer.

Lance Rayner, 71, was told last month by Veterans Affairs Canada that he has been approved for increased pension benefits following a decision by the Veterans Review and Appeal Board.

“It is a good amount,” Rayner said, adding the initial payment is retroactive back to when he filed for the additional compensation one month after he was diagnosed in February 2022.

“The cheque was deposited before we knew I had been approved. My wife said, ‘Where in the heck did this come from?’ But this took long enough.”

It brings to an end Rayner’s four-year battle for compensation after being rejected when he first applied.

Rayner was just 24 years old when he was ordered to pack warm clothes and join fellow officer Bob Grinstead to guard the wreckage of the reconnaissance satellite Kosmos 954.

The satellite had crashed near Lutselk’e, a community on the east end of Great Slave Lake, on Jan. 24, 1978. Rayner was flown to the site in a plane with skis from RCMP headquarters in Yellowknife. Grinstead travelled via Chinook helicopter from his post in Baker Lake.

But while his personal down-filled blue ski jacket was warmer than anything issued by the RCMP, and he had a sleeping bag thick enough to use in a tent during winter, neither gave any protection from the radiation at the site. The satellite’s radioactive core didn’t burn up during re-entry through the atmosphere.

“We were given food rations which needed water so we melted the snow there,” Rayner said. “But that snow was covered with the dust which had spread when the satellite hit, so we were eating radiation.

“And our tent was less than 30 metres away.”

Rayner spent a week at the site. The satellite wreckage was later taken to the Atomic Energy of Canada waste disposal site at Pinawa.

Rayner, who retired from the Mounties in September 2009 after more than 35 years of service, said it wasn’t until 2022 that he was diagnosed with a rare malignant salivary-gland tumour. He had surgery to remove it, but was told he had Stage 4 terminal cancer.

In the four years since then, he has undergone 20 rounds of radiation therapy and had hormone treatments. The disease’s progression has stalled.

Rayner said he wasn’t the only one who got cancer from being at the crash site, and he is hoping the compensation decision will help others and their families.

Grinstead, a RCMP officer for 24 years, was diagnosed with leukemia in 2012 and died at 63 years of age in 2019. Grinstead was told by doctors that his leukemia, which returned twice after he was initially diagnosed, was a type often seen in patients exposed to high levels of radiation.

In a letter Rayner received, the appeal board said it made its decision based on expert medical opinion that the cancer, “Is connected to his exposure to radiation in the Northwest Territories in 1978 when the Russian satellite crashed in the Arctic.”

“The appeal board also accepts that based on information… the crash site was radioactive.”

A doctor who examined Rayner told the appeal board that, although the retired officer’s only exposure to radiation was more than 48 years ago, “these cancers may take many years to develop and cause symptoms.”

“The long latency period from the radiation exposure to the development of parotid cancer is typical and not unexpected… salivary gland cancer occurs at a rate of three cases per 100,000 people per year,” the doctor said.

”The rarity of this type of cancer further supports that the radiation exposure was a significant cause.”

Josh Bueckert, a Veterans Affairs Canada spokesman, said the department can’t comment on individual cases because of the privacy act.

But he said any eligible military veteran or RCMP member who is injured or sickened as a result of their service can apply for assistance.

“They may qualify for financial compensation and/or health benefits in recognition of the impact their service related injury can have on their life,” he said.

“Every situation is unique and therefore VAC works with veterans on a case-by-case basis.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca