South Pole rescue planned for sick doctor

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- Smaller planes are to be used to rescue a sick doctor from the South Pole in extremely cold conditions.

Dr. Ronald S. Shemenski, 59, the only physician at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica, recently passed a gallstone and has the potentially life-threatening condition known as pancreatitis.

A fleet of three ski-equipped LC-130 Hercules cargo planes that had been heading from a New York air base to New Zealand to carry out the dangerous mission were recalled after the decision to use smaller planes, the Washington, D.C.-based National Science Foundation (NSF) said in a press release.

Instead, two eight-seat, twin-engine planes called Twin Otters will fly from Canada to the southernmost tip of South America before flying to a British Antarctic base and waiting for weather to ease enough to allow one of them to make a mercy dash to the Pole.

"Air Force, Department of Interior, and NSF officials . . . concluded that the Twin Otter airframe offered the best chance of getting to and from the Pole in the near-dark with temperatures around -75 C (-103 F)," the NSF said.

Low temperatures

Temperatures at the pole currently are in the mid -60s C (about -80 F).

When conditions allow, one of the planes will fly for 10 hours from Britain's Rothera research station to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station carrying two pilots, an engineer, a replacement physician and a nurse.

The other Twin Otter and its crew will remain at Rothera as backup resources.

This is the second time in recent years that the South Pole station's lone physician has developed a serious illness.

In October 1999, Dr. Jerri Nielsen was successfully evacuated after she discovered a breast tumor that was diagnosed as cancerous.

Col. Richard Saburro, one of the men who was helping coordinate the current mission, said efforts to evacuate Shemenski would be even more difficult.

"In the Nielsen situation, we were heading . . . into summer with temperatures trending upward . . . and light conditions improving. We had daylight," Saburro said on Friday in a telephone interview from Christchurch, on the eastern coast of New Zealand.

"Things are just reversed today. We know we are heading into winter.

"The sun has already set . . . There isn't much light at the South Pole. So that adds considerable additional challenges and risks that we need to account for."

The NSF said the Twin Otters were chosen over the Hercules because they can better deal with the icy conditions.

Half-buried in snow

"The extreme temperatures at the Pole are less likely to affect the Twin Otter landing gear, which is less reliant on hydraulic fluids than are the Hercules," the NSF said.

In extreme cold, hydraulic fluid becomes viscous, making controls sluggish.

The four-engine turboprop LC-130 Hercules is rated safe down to -55 C (-67 F) while the Twin Otter is rated safe to -75 C (-103 F).

The Amundsen-Scott base is a scattering of low buildings half-buried in the drifting snow.

The largest looks like a partially buried golf ball lodged in the polar ice.

That building is being gradually disassembled, junked and taken out in pieces because it had a problem with snow drifting against its upwind side, requiring the use of bulldozers to plow the mounting drifts away.

About 50 U.S. scientists work at the base during the polar winter carrying out experiments involving astrophysics and astronomy, with a range of sophisticated telescopes set up there.

Measurements of pollution that wafts in from the rest of the world are also taken.

Similar research stations are scattered across Antarctica staffed by researchers from nations including Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

Although the National Science Foundation, an independent government agency that coordinates U.S. scientific research in Antarctica, says Shemenski's condition is improving, authorities want to evacuate him now in case he deteriorates in coming weeks when temperatures will plunge too far for an evacuation and stay that way until October.

Shemenski is an employee of Raytheon Polar Services Corp. of Englewood, Colorado. The company operates under a contract with the NSF's Antarctic operation.

The Twin Otters are operated by Kenn Borek Air Ltd., a Canadian firm that flies for the U.S. Antarctic Program under a contract to Raytheon Polar Service Corp.

Surgery for Shemenski, a normal course of treatment, would be "ill advised" at the South Pole so agency officials are considering other options including a midwinter rescue by ski-equipped aircraft.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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