If someone has a medical emergency, the logical reaction is to call an ambulance. In a small village, in the worst case, the ambulance must come from a larger town. Then, you would have to wait between 5 and 15 minutes for the ambulance to come. But what do you do if you really need an ambulance and you're in the South Pole in the middle of the austral winter?
In June 2016 a medical rescue expedition was made to evacuate two ill workers from the Amundsen-Scott station, located exactly at the geographical South Pole. I would like to point out that these days, in the northern hemisphere, you were enjoying the longest days of the year and, therefore, in the South Pole, they were in the middle of the austral winter. This means 24 hours of absolute darkness and, the feeling that if you are at -50ºC, you're enjoying a warm wave.
But before explaining how the two patients had to be evacuated, let me explain how life is at the Amundsen-Scott station.
The first building of the Amundsen-Scott base was built, exactly in the geographic South Pole in 1956. The base obviously bears the name of the first two expeditions that reached the South Pole: the first one, the Norwegian expedition, leaded by Roald Amundsen, followed some days later by Captain Robert Falcon Scott's British expedition which, apart from losing the race, ended up in misfortune, dying all the components of the expedition of famine and cold on the return journey.
In June 2016 a medical rescue expedition was made to evacuate two ill workers from the Amundsen-Scott station, located exactly at the geographical South Pole. I would like to point out that these days, in the northern hemisphere, you were enjoying the longest days of the year and, therefore, in the South Pole, they were in the middle of the austral winter. This means 24 hours of absolute darkness and, the feeling that if you are at -50ºC, you're enjoying a warm wave.
But before explaining how the two patients had to be evacuated, let me explain how life is at the Amundsen-Scott station.
The first building of the Amundsen-Scott base was built, exactly in the geographic South Pole in 1956. The base obviously bears the name of the first two expeditions that reached the South Pole: the first one, the Norwegian expedition, leaded by Roald Amundsen, followed some days later by Captain Robert Falcon Scott's British expedition which, apart from losing the race, ended up in misfortune, dying all the components of the expedition of famine and cold on the return journey.
After successive extensions, demolitions and remodelings, the base is currently made up of a main building (the gray one, in front at the photo), and a whole series of small auxiliary buildings that perform as laboratories, workshops... If you look at the image, in the foreground just in front of the main building, you will see a small half-circle shaped by what might look like poles or stakes. In fact, they are the flags that enclose the exact point that, at that time, occupies the Geographic South Pole. And I say "at that moment" because the Base is located on a giant glacier that moves about 10 cm. each year. So, from time to time, they need to dismantle the whole thing and re-place it on the right place.
The current building, the gray one on the photo, is quite interesting. Do you see that it is suspended over a kind of pillars? Here you can see it better:
These pillars are hydraulic and can be raised up to twenty centimeters. As ice moves, there could be different settlements throughout the building. When this happens, the height of a pillar is extended or decreased and problem gets solved.
The other curious point is this sloppy lower part of the building (just above pillars' head). This is intended to use wind when blowing. The air is forced to divert below the building and, when following this path, the wind accelerates and helps the recent snow to get cleaned from below the buildings. You might think that the South Pole has a very dry climate (it is really far from the sea), and receiving only around 20cm per year, snow shoudn't be a problem. But this snow never disappears; It always accumulates. If fresh snow under the buildings doesn't get removed, in a few years they would be buried!
The base has all kinds of comforts for almost 200 inhabitants in the summer, and 50 in the winter: gym, sports field, library, games room, cinema, greenhouse, a small hospital. Seems not so bad ...
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| Standard bedroom at the Base |
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| At the shop you can buy clothes, food, sweets, alcohol and, also, rent a DVD. |
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| Sports court is also used as a conference room. |
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| Dining room with Christmas decoration... during austral summer, of course! |
Here you have a video with a promenade inside Amundsen-Scott Base:
Life conditions, however, are very hard. And especially for the fifty or so people that stay there during winter season. The average temperature during april to septemeber is... -60ºC. And this is only the average, because it's quite easy to go below -70ºC (lowest ever recorded temperature was -82,8ºC). Would you like to know what do you need to wear for these temperatures? Watch it in the next video:
But coldness isn't the worst thing (you should already know that cold weather is never a problem in this blog). The worst is that, during anctartic winter, Amundsen-Scott Base "enjoys" 6 months of absolute night and darkness. Yes, This is the only point on the planet that, every year, only has one dawn and one dusk. It means that every year, around mid-March, the sun goes down and doesn't gets back until mid-September. On September 21st, the first day that the sun appears, it will stay permanently in ths sky until next March.
Fantastic! Temperatures around -60ºC and total darkness. And when a say total darkness means.... total! There's no luminic contamination in a circle of 2.000km so sky is dark black with thousands of stars. For the 50 braves that "hibernate" at the Base, the psychologic challenge is really harsh. Moreover, they are almost totally isolated, except by phone and internet. Basically all hibernants are workers that maintain the Base, and some scientists that need to do their research during austral winter.
And what about the rescue mission? In May 2016, two hibernants felt ill and couldn't be treated at the basic Base hospital. The only way to save their lifes was evacuation. The first problem was how to find a plane capable of landing in such conditions. Usually, the route is served by New Zealand planes, but they are only prepared for summer flights. If they wanted to find planes (and pilots) with the capability for that flight, they should search in.... Canada!
Kenn Borek Air is, probably, one of the more "extreme" airlines of the world. Their main specialty is flying the Canadian Arctic routes, so they owned two Twin Otter planes prepared for temperatures below -70ºC. Both bimotors took off from Calgary, Canadà and, one week and 16.500Km later, one of the two planes landed at Amundsen Scott Base, picking up both patients. Whatch the conditions under which the rescue took place:
Although the small inconvenients that staying a winter in Scott-Amundsen Base has, belive me; if I got the proposal of going there, I would pack my suitcases immediately!
