{"id":41157,"date":"2016-06-22T20:51:40","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T20:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/risky-south-pole-rescue-succeeds-as-2-patients-are-airlifted-out\/"},"modified":"2016-06-22T20:51:40","modified_gmt":"2016-06-22T20:51:40","slug":"risky-south-pole-rescue-succeeds-as-2-patients-are-airlifted-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/risky-south-pole-rescue-succeeds-as-2-patients-are-airlifted-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Risky South Pole Rescue Succeeds As 2 Patients Are Airlifted Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ai<\/p>\n

\n A Canadian-owned Twin Otter aircraft evacuated two people from the South Pole on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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Robert Schwarz, National Science Foundation<\/p>\n

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Robert Schwarz, National Science Foundation<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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A Canadian-owned Twin Otter aircraft evacuated two people from the South Pole on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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Robert Schwarz, National Science Foundation<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A small plane on a daring winter evacuation mission from the South Pole has reached the edge of the Antarctic continent.<\/p>\n

The National Science Foundation, which runs the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, says the Twin Otter rescue aircraft took off with two patients early Wednesday. It arrived at a British base 1,500 miles away shortly after 1 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n

The South Pole station is staffed year round, but normally nobody enters or leaves during the winter months, which corresponds to the North American summer. \u201cIt\u2019s mind-boggling how cold it gets down there,\u201d says Jerry Macala, who oversaw the first-ever evacuation from the station in 2001. Temperatures routinely drop below -70 Fahrenheit, and the C-130 transport aircraft used during the summer months cannot land, he tells Kelly McEvers on today\u2019s All Things Considered.<\/p>\n

\"Evacuations<\/p>\n

\n Evacuations from Antarctica are extremely rare. Conditions during the winter make it risky.<\/p>\n

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Robert Schwarz, National Science Foundation<\/p>\n

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Robert Schwarz, National Science Foundation<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Macala says that landing a plane in the perpetual night is considered extremely dangerous. During the 2001 evacuation, he says he instructed his crew to light oil-drums along the runway in order to guide the plane in. But in the frigid Antarctic temperatures, the gasoline they used wouldn\u2019t ignite. \u201cWe had to use acetylene torches to light these things,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

When the plane was finally ready to take off, they discovered it had frozen to the ice. \u201cEverybody pitched in, and we rocked the wings and hit the skis with big pieces of wood,\u201d he says. \u201cEventually, it broke loose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the risks \u2014 and a windchill of -113 degrees Fahrenheit \u2014 today\u2019s evacuation flight appears to have gone smoothly. The NSF says a sick contractor was brought out, along with a second individual who was suffering from a medical condition. Details of the illnesses are being withheld because of patient privacy concerns.<\/p>\n

The Canadian-owned Twin Otter aircraft will eventually fly to Chile. From there, the two workers will be sent to an undisclosed hospital for medical attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

i A Canadian-owned Twin Otter aircraft evacuated two people from the South Pole on Wednesday. Robert Schwarz, National Science Foundation hide caption toggle caption Robert Schwarz, National Science Foundation A Canadian-owned Twin Otter aircraft evacuated two people from the South Pole on Wednesday. Robert Schwarz, National Science Foundation A small plane on a daring winter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}