Moments after he landed in Los Angeles for his son’s wedding last year, Gilbert “Kip” Wyand said he vomited a gallon of blood in the airport parking lot.
Severe stomach pain, drenching night sweats and sudden body temperature changes soon followed. Two months later, in May, Wyand was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia — a type of cancer of the blood and bone marrow that the National Cancer Institute says can be caused by radiation exposure.
The diagnosis confused him. At 57, he had been healthy his whole life, rarely even having a cold, and he had no family history of health issues. But the next month, as his son tried to make sense of his illness, he stumbled upon a newly published Navy report, outlining efforts to address radioactive materials that have contaminated the now-closed Long Beach Naval Shipyard in California for decades.
It was the first time Wyand, a Navy veteran who lived and worked at the shipyard in the late 1980s, learned he may have been exposed to radium-226 and strontium-90 — radionuclides that build up in the body over time and are linked to leukemia and other cancers.
The Navy has known about multiple environmental contaminations at the base for more than 20 years. In 2008 it conducted a study that found radiation, then publicly documented for the first time in 2023 the detection of radiation involving levels of radium-226 and strontium-90. But the Navy had not alerted Wyand or any others to the potential exposure. A spokesperson said there is no mechanism in place to notify veterans of possible exposures after a base is no longer operational.
Wyand sought to spread awareness about the exposure so that other veterans of the shipyard would know that they too could be at risk, as he scrambled to secure approval for a bone marrow transplant from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
He said the VA required him to make about a dozen medical appointments, including one for a mental health assessment and another for a dental exam. In November, he told NBC News he was beginning to panic “I don’t have time to wait and see what’s going to happen,” he said. “By the time I jump through all these hoops, it’s going to be too late for me.”On Jan. 10, Wyand died, leaving his family dazed and outraged.“We’re all angry,” his son, Adam Wyand, said. “We all feel like we’ve been robbed.” Wyand felt fine, relieved to see his son surrounded by so many people who loved him, according to Louise Wyand, who at the time was his girlfriend of 12 years. That night, he asked Louise about renting a car and driving to Las Vegas to get married themselves “if that sounded good.”
They changed their return flight and tied the knot at the Little White Wedding Chapel in Sin City the next day.
Back home in Hudson, Florida, more symptoms emerged: night sweats, abdominal pain, chills. The newlywed said it felt like being “run over by a truck.” By May, his battle to get lifesaving care began.
Wyand underwent his first chemotherapy treatment over the summer, but he needed to get a bone marrow transplant to survive. That approval process, the VA said, typically requires comprehensive clinical and psychosocial evaluations, dental assessments and alcohol, tobacco and toxicology screens.
The diagnosis confused him. At 57, he had been healthy his whole life, rarely even having a cold, and he had no family history of health issues. But the next month, as his son tried to make sense of his illness, he stumbled upon a newly published Navy report, outlining efforts to address radioactive materials that have contaminated the now-closed Long Beach Naval Shipyard in California for decades.
It was the first time Wyand, a Navy veteran who lived and worked at the shipyard in the late 1980s, learned he may have been exposed to radium-226 and strontium-90 — radionuclides that build up in the body over time and are linked to leukemia and other cancers.
The Navy has known about multiple environmental contaminations at the base for more than 20 years. In 2008 it conducted a study that found radiation, then publicly documented for the first time in 2023 the detection of radiation involving levels of radium-226 and strontium-90. But the Navy had not alerted Wyand or any others to the potential exposure. A spokesperson said there is no mechanism in place to notify veterans of possible exposures after a base is no longer operational.
The diagnosis confused him. At 57, he had been healthy his whole life, rarely even having a cold, and he had no family history of health issues. But the next month, as his son tried to make sense of his illness, he stumbled upon a newly published Navy report, outlining efforts to address radioactive materials that have contaminated the now-closed Long Beach Naval Shipyard in California for decades.
It was the first time Wyand, a Navy veteran who lived and worked at the shipyard in the late 1980s, learned he may have been exposed to radium-226 and strontium-90 — radionuclides that build up in the body over time and are linked to leukemia and other cancers.
The Navy has known about multiple environmental contaminations at the base for more than 20 years. In 2008 it conducted a study that found radiation, then publicly documented for the first time in 2023 the detection of radiation involving levels of radium-226 and strontium-90. But the Navy had not alerted Wyand or any others to the potential exposure. A spokesperson said there is no mechanism in place to notify veterans of possible exposures after a base is no longer operational.
The state health department, which reviewed the latest Navy report and gave feedback before it was published, said it is possible that veterans who lived and worked at the shipyard could have been exposed to radiation from radium and strontium.
It’s unclear how many may have been affected — or how many served during the start of the contamination in the 1940s until the shipyard closed in 1997 — because the Navy’s Base Realignment and Closure office that handles environmental cleanups at closed facilities does not have access to personnel records, Navy spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Joe Keiley said.
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