South Pole air drop
Rob Holmes
of medical supplies for a woman that has developed a lump in her breast. An
evacuation has been ruled too risky due to the cold and darkness. There is
a short article at the N.Z. Press (www.press.co.nz) and it can be found by
typing "antarctica" in the search function. I have a feeling there will be
a story in the Washington Post soon as well, since I just got off of the
phone with them.
Please join me in sending your thoughts and prayers to the woman at Pole.
Rob Holmes
www.theice.org
Janni Lee Simner
>I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this yet. They will be an air drop
>of medical supplies for a woman that has developed a lump in her breast. An
>evacuation has been ruled too risky due to the cold and darkness. There is
>a short article at the N.Z. Press (www.press.co.nz) and it can be found by
>typing "antarctica" in the search function. I have a feeling there will be
>a story in the Washington Post soon as well, since I just got off of the
>phone with them.
Sending many good thoughts to the pole from here.
Janni
____________________________________________________________________
Janni Lee Simner -- jsi...@pobox.com -- http://www.dm.net/~janni/
<John> <Cormier>
prayers are with you all.
John Cormier
Ft. Lauderdale, FL
-----Original Message-----
From: Rob Holmes <rbr...@SSEC.WISC.EDU>
To: nsp...@tc.umn.edu <nsp...@tc.umn.edu>
Date: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 6:08 PM
Subject: South Pole air drop
>I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this yet. They will be an air drop
>of medical supplies for a woman that has developed a lump in her breast.
An
>evacuation has been ruled too risky due to the cold and darkness. There is
>a short article at the N.Z. Press (www.press.co.nz) and it can be found by
>typing "antarctica" in the search function. I have a feeling there will be
>a story in the Washington Post soon as well, since I just got off of the
>phone with them.
>
Bob Lewis
rbr...@SSEC.WISC.EDU writes:
<< Please join me in sending your thoughts and prayers to the woman at Pole.
Rob Holmes
www.theice.org
>>
Dear Rob,
Count me in. Thanks for notifying me.
Sincerely,
boblewis
Gena Stephens
>
> I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this yet. They will be an air drop
> of medical supplies for a woman that has developed a lump in her breast. An
> evacuation has been ruled too risky due to the cold and darkness. There is
> a short article at the N.Z. Press (www.press.co.nz) and it can be found by
> typing "antarctica" in the search function. I have a feeling there will be
> a story in the Washington Post soon as well, since I just got off of the
> phone with them.
>
>
> Rob Holmes
right away and she taped it from CBS NEWS... We will be keeping a close
eye on it. Our prayers and thoughts are with her and her family-both
there and here. My computer has been on the blink for a long time now. I
owe lots of emails.... To YOU and Jhon--if you're out there--- don't
give up on my... help is on it's way... LOL... really-the puter guy
hopes to have it rectified tomorrow night!!!!!
Again... my/our prayers are with her. Rob, if you know her-please let
her know a lot of people are pulling for her.
Thanks!!!
Linda
Chris Weddle
>I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this yet. They will be an air drop
>of medical supplies for a woman that has developed a lump in her breast. An
>evacuation has been ruled too risky due to the cold and darkness. There is
>a short article at the N.Z. Press (www.press.co.nz) and it can be found by
>typing "antarctica" in the search function. I have a feeling there will be
>a story in the Washington Post soon as well, since I just got off of the
>phone with them.
>Please join me in sending your thoughts and prayers to the woman at Pole.
>Rob Holmes www.theice.org
Hi Rob and "List",
Please paste the text of these articles into an email and send it to me
directly. No web access here aboard our icebreaker. Maximum email size we
can receive is 50KB per message, roughly. Darned satellite prices...
A suggestion for those of you up north, the South Pole has some limited web
surfing abilities when an errant weather satellite wobbles their way. If
anyone cares to volunteer to take in Get Well messages and display them on
a web page, perhaps scans of cards too, the NSPT may be a good place to
announce it. This is not any sort of official request mind you, just my
private wild hare of an idea. Someone at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole
Station will learn of it I'm sure.
Wishing for a rapid recovery and an early spring on the ice,
Chris Weddle
RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer
Walt Wheeler
> At 05:08 PM 7/7/99 -0500, Rob Holmes wrote:
> >I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this yet. They will be an air drop
> >of medical supplies for a woman that has developed a lump in her breast. An
> >evacuation has been ruled too risky due to the cold and darkness. There is
> >a short article at the N.Z. Press (www.press.co.nz) and it can be found by
> >typing "antarctica" in the search function. I have a feeling there will be
> >a story in the Washington Post soon as well, since I just got off of the
> >phone with them.
>
actually, 2 stories. They ran an AP story on 7/6 (?) and this on 7/8
Washington Post
July 8, 1999
Pg. 3
Airdrop Planned For Worker With Breast Lump
Stranded, Sick At South Pole
By Guy Gugliotta, Washington Post Staff Writer
It is 3,200 miles from civilization, in the middle of a chill, pitch-dark,
virtually uninhabited wilderness the size of the United States and
Mexico combined.
The South Pole is as far from help as any place on Earth. Isolated
for nine months with 40 other people enduring the winter at the
National Science Foundation's tiny Amundsen-Scott South Pole
Station, a 47-year-old woman about three weeks ago discovered a
lump in her breast. Extreme cold and darkness made it impossible
to land aircraft at the station, so today the Air Force planned to
send a C-141 Starlifter cargo jet on an emergency mission to
airdrop medical supplies to treat the woman until a springtime flight
can evacuate her in November.
Officials would not identify the woman, or give any details of her
condition: "The individual appreciates the support and concern
she's received from friends and colleagues and the efforts made on
her behalf," the foundation said in a statement yesterday. "She has
chosen privacy at this point in a very personal process."
The woman is an employee of Englewood, Colo.-based Antarctic
Support Associates, a private company contracted to maintain the
base facilities and provide services to researchers working there.
The Englewood firm would not describe her work or her condition,
but spokeswoman Valerie Carroll said the woman had had an x-ray
and a biopsy at the station's medical facility. Communications with
the station were limited by satellite availability, Carroll said.
But after the woman found the lump, she and the station's lone
doctor had conducted medical consultations in conference
telephone calls and by e-mail with doctors "from all over the
country."
Officials would not specify exactly what medical supplies will be
airdropped, but Carroll said they will enable the doctor to treat a
variety of conditions if necessary.
There are 19 support personnel wintering at the station, along with
eight scientists and 14 construction workers involved in "South
Pole Rebuild," a project to revamp the 1970s-era installation,
Carroll said.
"It is essentially a skeleton crew that keeps the station running,"
added foundation spokesman Peter West. "If you own a rental
property, you don't turn off the heat. They're doing some
maintenance, and some technicians are assisting with
experiments."
Those who spend the winter at the Pole are stuck there between
February and October, when ice and snow blow over the runways,
and extreme cold cripples aircraft hydraulics, West said.
The temperature at the pole was -82 degrees Fahrenheit at 5 p.m.
yesterday, with 12 mile-per-hour winds, according to the
foundation's Office of Polar Programs.
Responding to a foundation request, the Air Force yesterday
readied a relief flight to leave today from McChord Air Force Base
in Tacoma, Wash., fly to Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii to
refuel, and then fly on to Christchurch, New Zealand for a 36-hour
rest stop.
Air Force Capt. Bill Barksdale, spokesman for the McChord-based
62nd Airlift Wing, said that--weather permitting--the C-141 Starlifter
planned to leave Christchurch Monday, refuel in mid-air from an
accompanying KC-10 tanker jet, make its airdrop and return to
Christchurch. The final round trip is 6,400 miles long, and most of it
will take place in the dead of the southern night.
"It's challenging weather overall," Barksdale said. He noted that the
62nd Airlift Wing had been making flights to the Pole for the "last
few years," but never during winter, and never in the dark.
Barksdale said the emergency flight would carry between 20 and
30 people, including double crew and navigators. Still, noted West,
although the emergency was "unusual and unfortunate," airdrops
were "something done on a fairly routine basis" in the past, when
the wintering researchers demanded fresh vegetables and mail.
The Internet, e-mail and better management of foodstuffs had made
the flights unnecessary in recent years.
The South Pole Station is a geodesic dome with an arch-like
entrance that gives it the appearance of a half-submerged, outsized
igloo. Tunnels and a walkway connect the dome to a large garage,
which, along with a fuel storage facility, are the only other large
structures at the station. During the southern hemisphere's
summer months between November and February, the station
accommodates up to 200 people who are working on hundreds of
experiments under the aegis of the foundation, which funds a
variety of scientific research, West said.
Support Associates provides everything from lab assistants to
cooks and aircraft mechanics. In the earliest parts of the summer,
large C-130 propeller-driven Hercules air cargo planes and smaller
DeHavilland Otters land at the station's airstrip for resupply and to
ferry personnel in and out. As the summer deepens, however, the
surface of the two-mile-thick ice cap turns slushy, and the planes
use skis.
But when winter sets in, the airstrip shuts down. Anybody who
spends the cold months must go through a thorough medical
screening, West said, to minimize the chances of serious medical
problems. A doctor remains through the winter to treat people at
the equivalent of a "level three trauma center," a fairly sophisticated
facility of the type that serves a town of 20,000 to 50,000 people.
West said officials are confident that the airdrop will bring adequate
treatment for the current patient "without an imminent threat to her
life," and expressed confidence the Air Force could bring off the
relief mission without trouble. "Beyond the sort of drama inherent in
Antarctica," West said, "the airdrop is the only way you can get
anything there."
walt wheeler
Buckeye 447
Nassau NY 12123
William B Stone
>
> At 05:08 PM 7/7/99 -0500, Rob Holmes wrote:
> >I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this yet. They will be an air drop
> >of medical supplies for a woman that has developed a lump in her breast. An
> >evacuation has been ruled too risky due to the cold and darkness. There is
> >a short article at the N.Z. Press (www.press.co.nz) and it can be found by
> >typing "antarctica" in the search function. I have a feeling there will be
> >a story in the Washington Post soon as well, since I just got off of the
> >phone with them.