Medevac

In case you never caught a glimpse on the news of the medical evacuation that happened down here a few weeks ago, here's a good clip to watch for context.


It was a very exciting/stressful couple weeks down here, though. One crew member had had a health crisis at the beginning of June that could have probably been managed down here for the rest of the winter. But when, a week later, a second crew member developed a medical condition that required evacuation from the station, preparations began for the first-ever true mid-winter medevac from South Pole.


After a week of intense prep, including testing fuel combos for the smudge pots that would light the runway....

...and dozing to recreate a runway (the summer one having been drifted over for months, now)....

...it was an insane thrill to see the plane coming in safely from its 10-hour flight from Rothera, on the Antarctic peninsula.

These are the first outside people we've seen in more than four months, plus weird to have the station lit up like a beacon so the plane could see us.

They were on the ground for about 10 hours, unpacking and repacking cargo, the crew sleeping, getting briefed on the two patients they were taking out, etc. (I'm in this pic, second from the left in the green and black coat.)

And then, suddenly the whole thing was over and it was back to 46 of us on station for the duration of the winter.

Last but not least, my favorite shot of about half of us posing with the plane. The crew at Rothera base sent us freshies (apples and oranges! for the first time in months!) and some amazing desserts, so we took a picture to thank them. You might not be able to read the signs we're holding up; it just says "Thank You Rothera," and I'm holding the Rothera sign.

By this point our two crew members who were flown out have long gotten safely home to the U.S. and are doing well. So, all in all a good outcome. And definitely an exciting time, though we were all nervous for the safety of the crew flying down here and our crew-mates who were evacuated. Big relief when they made it safely to South America and our South Pole routine could start getting back to normal.




Also, here are some articles about previous South Pole medevacs, if you're interested:
http://www.southpolestation.com/news/medevac2003/medevacpatient.pdf
http://www.southpolestation.com/news/medevac.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerri_Nielsen
http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/10s/renee.html