Crew Rescues Ailing Doctor at South Pole
A U.S. military plane took off safely from the South Pole today, evacuating an ailing American doctor who had been treating herself after finding a lump in her breast.
The plane, an LC-130 Hercules from the New York Air National Guard’s 109th Airlift Wing, left the Antarctic coast and took about three hours to reach the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Research Station, a dome in the snow and ice that houses 41 researchers from the U.S. National Science Foundation.
After the plane landed on a runway carved out of ice, Dr. Jerri Nielsen, 47, was helped aboard and a replacement doctor was left behind before the plane took off again.
“The passenger exchange took just 22 minutes,” U.S. Air Force spokesman Victor Hines said from Christchurch.
The rescue was launched from McMurdo station on Antarctica’s coast after temperatures at the South Pole rose to around minus 58 degrees, high enough for the Hercules to fly there.
Nielsen, of Youngstown, Ohio, will probably be flown from McMurdo to New Zealand and then to the United States for treatment.
She has been treating herself with chemotherapy since supplies were dropped to her in July.
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