In passing you might be interested in this man.
the development of nuclear weapons had a number of casulties.
Louis Slotkin had the insanely dangerous job of assembling part of a bomb at Los Alamos. He slipped. there was a criticality and although he knocked it away quickly enough to save the others in the room he died a few days later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin
Of course he knew the risks of what he was doing and why he was doing it.
I don't think he got any compensation but he does have an asteroid named after him