After serving four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Shane Nedohin has suffered cumulative brain injuries through repeated concussions, but says Veterans Affairs has repeatedly denied his claims for supports.
Shane Nedohin’s role as a breacher with the Canadian military’s special operations force put him in charge of kicking down doors. Sometimes literally, sometimes in ways the retired Master Corporal says are too sensitive to discuss. But the job is to clear a path so fellow soldiers can get through.
But now, he’s up against a door he can’t seem to force open: Veterans Affairs Canada’s refusal to accept he has a traumatic brain injury caused by 22 years of exposure to blasts.
The government does accept he has injuries. The rejection letter for his application for disability benefits for TBI notes that his clinical history is consistent with a brain injury. But Veterans Affairs said in the letter, viewed by The Globe and Mail, “repetitive exposure to blast injuries” isn’t supported in expert medical literature as leading to cognitive decline.
Mr. Nedohin – backed by some experts in the field – says that’s not true. It’s time for the government to catch up with the science, they argue, because if they don’t, they are putting soldiers’ lives even more at risk.
All of his friends are suffering, Mr. Nedohin said, and one fellow breacher died by suicide last year. After his rejection letter, Mr. Nedohin said he contemplated suicide, too.
“Quite a few friends I know have been to the edge and back, and how many more dead veterans do we have to see before somebody will care?” he said.
Veterans Affairs Canada told The Globe they are continuously reviewing evidence, but declined to address Mr. Nedohin’s case specifically.
Mr. Nedohin joined the military at 17, spending 10 years in the reserves before joining the regular force and then, Canada’s elite Joint Task Force 2, deploying with it multiple times in the Middle East and Africa.
His body bears the physical scars of his work. When he gets up in the morning, he sounds like a Doritos bag, he jokes, and he’s only 39 years old. But he thought he knew what he was signing up for – accepting that some days you’d get “your bell rung,” and then just go back to work, same as before.
Now, he feels differently.
“The old thing, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is so not true. It’s the opposite. It actually makes you more susceptible every time,” he said.
Every flash-bang grenade tossed to clear a path. The echoes of gunfire during close-quarter-battle. Mixed-martial-arts moves during training. Over the decades those blasts piled up – as did other symptoms: violent nightmares, vicious mood swings, crushing exhaustion, sudden weight gain, severe vertigo, moments where he had no idea where he was or what he was doing. He could no longer read for long stretches, lost his love for music – he used to be a bagpiper – and his two daughters were told not to wake him suddenly lest he lash out swinging.
Over time, Nedohin was diagnosed with acute hypothyroidim, ADHD and PTSD – three conditions that are linked to traumatic brain injury.
Over time, he was formally diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, acute hypothyroidism and post-traumatic stress disorder – three conditions science is also beginning to link to TBI, and not just among those with documented physical hits to the head, but also injuries from the shock waves they are exposed to. He does receive other disability benefits for PTSD, mental health and physical injuries.
An American study published in April of active-duty United States Special Operations Forces concluded that “higher blast exposure was associated with alterations in brain structure, function, and neuroimmune markers, as well as lower quality of life.”
In June, The New York Times published an investigation into elite American soldiers who had experienced marked personality and behavioural changes before eventually dying by suicide. Studies of their brains afterwards revealed damage and changes never before observed except among those repeatedly exposed to blasts.
In May, a Canadian study was also published, funded by the Department of National Defence. Mr. Nedohin was part of a cohort of special forces soldiers who brains were scanned repeatedly over a five-year period for signs of damage.
While the sample size was small, researchers did conclude there were obvious brain changes in those repeatedly exposed to blasts.
Dr. Christopher Skinner, a neurologist with the Ottawa Hospital and one of the authors of the study, told The Globe when the research project was approved, it was anticipated the results would be used to help DND and Veterans Affairs make evidence-based decisions. So far, he’s not heard anything back from them about the findings.
The current directive guiding Veterans Affairs Canada on low-level blasts and chronic neurological conditions was issued in October of 2023, the department told The Globe in a statement. At the top of the bibliography for that directive is a note: “there is ongoing research on the effects of LLB exposure and this topic should be reviewed in two years.”
In March of this year, the department also did a research scan of sub-concussive exposures, and is modernizing the tools it uses to make decisions, the statement said.
“VAC continues to review the most current scientific and medical research with respect to traumatic brain injury,” the statement said.
Mr. Nedohin is in Ottawa this week alongside concussion research advocates and others to argue for a faster pace for those reviews, not just for his own sake.
He may have left his military days as a breacher, but he’s still trying to open doors, he said.
“I’m trying to kick it down for my friends,” he said.
