Stroke Victim Stranded At South Pole Base 264
Hugh Pickens writes "Renee-Nicole Douceur, the winter manager at the Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole, was sitting at her desk on August 27 when she suffered a stroke. 'I looked at the screen and was like, "Oh my God, half the screen is missing."' But both the National Science Foundation and contractor Raytheon say it would be too dangerous to send a rescue plane to the South Pole now, since Douceur's condition is not life-threatening. Douceur's niece Sydney Raines has set up a Web site that urges people to call officials at Raytheon and the National Science Foundation. However, temperatures must be higher than -50 degrees F for most planes to land at Amundsen-Scott or the fuel will turn to jelly. While that threshold has been crossed at the South Pole recently, the temperature still regularly dips to 70 degrees below zero. 'It's like no other airfield in the U.S.,' says Ronnie Smith, a former Air Force navigator who has flown there about 300 times. A pilot landing a plane there in winter, when it is dark 24 hours a day, would be flying blind 'because you can't install lights under the ice.' The most famous instance of a person being airlifted from the South Pole for medical reasons was that involving Jerri Nielsen FitzGerald, a doctor who diagnosed and treated her own breast cancer. Using only ice and a local anesthetic, she performed her own biopsy with the help of a resident welder. When she departed on October 16, 1999, it was the earliest in the Antarctic spring that a plane had taken off."
Ehmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only is the condition not life threatening at the moment, the rescue wouldn't achieve much since by the time the victim could be transported out of there, any damage would've been done already. Not to mention that putting her into an unpressurized plane (if it's too cold for the C130) could be dangerous by itself.
I may be callous, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
She had the stroke a month and a half ago. The next scheduled flight is one week away. Maybe this would have been newsworthy on September 10th, but at this point, if she's functional, she can last another week.
Honestly, how bad would she (and her family back home) feel if they send a "rescue flight" tomorrow, and it crashes on attempted landing, killing the crew? Or how bad would her family feel if it landed successfully, managed to take off again, but then the engines die halfway to the coast due to jelled fuel, killing the crew AND her?
panic (Score:4, Insightful)
Raines has set up a Web site that urges people to call officials at Raytheon and the National Science Foundation.
With the purpose of what? Endangering more lives? This isn't a rational plea for help, it's irrational panic.
Re:South Pole != USA (Score:4, Insightful)
The South pole isn't apart of the US.
Yes it is.
Re:South Pole != USA (Score:3, Insightful)
Apostrophes, how do they work?
Apostrophe's? You add them at random.
Re:Ehmm (Score:5, Insightful)
This sob-story was posted on redit a few weeks back, it is nice that her family is trying to get that stroke victim back, but the truth is that flying out to the south pole isnt exactly easy, and once a stroke victim is stabilized, there isnt much to do after the first 24 hours.
I'd be more upset if they risked a three man flight crew in dangerous conditions then if this woman has to wait a few more months
Re:other factors (Score:3, Insightful)
Source? None of that is on the petition [whitehouse.gov]:
Help Renee-Nicole Douceur get evaculated from Antarctica now! Raytheon and the NSF do not think a stroke is an emergency
My mother/aunt, Renee Douceur, is the winter site manager at the South Pole Station run by Raytheon and the National Science Foundation. She suffered a stroke on August 27th and the on-site doctors requested for her immediate medical emergency evacuation to get her to proper medical care and prevent further injury to her, The decision makers are disregarding the on-site doctors’ request for Renee’s immediate need for emergency evacuation. Instead they are treating her stroke as a non-emergency, keeping her at the South Pole until late October or early November. Renee’s attorney has advised her to go public because he is being stonewalled by Raytheon and the NSF to get her out ASAP for proper medical diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation (if she survives the trip out) Let's get her home!
Re:other factors (Score:4, Insightful)
That's precisely why she didn't insist that they fly before it was technically possible. Today we have all kinds of wonderful things like heated fuel tanks and satellite imagery which collectively make an extraction not only possible, but feasible.
What is supposed to separate us from the "lower" animals is stuff like compassion. Except, as it turns out, they have plenty.
Re:other factors (Score:3, Insightful)
Naturally, the relevant facts never make the news. It ain't sexy.
Nope, because quite frankly who cares about the detail of a medical attendant when the primary purpose and single largest stupidity is petitioning to make the situation worse. She wants to petition about a medical attendant then more power to her, I'd be happy to sign that. But she's not.
People are horrendously irrational when they become passionate about something. Unfortunately that's not her fault, it's human nature. I have a wonderful video demonstrating this showing a welder in a confined space and a hole-watch outside him. The welder was engulfed in flames in a sudden explosion. The holewatch instead of radioing for help and following the prepared rescue plan jumped in to save him. End result was 2 deaths instead of none as the incident report determined the initial casualty would likely have survived if help was summoned straight away rather than 10 min later when someone showed up trying to figure out why they heard a bang.
She is actively pursuing something that could potentially make the situation much worse, and that is really the most relevant part of this story.
Re:other factors (Score:5, Insightful)
Having been the guy who's made the call to not fly a rescue mission, I sympathise. However, killing 3 people (or 7 in my case) to potentially save 1 person is a hell of a call to make. My personal risk tolerance is about E-2. However, when the risk is killing the entire crew, it drops, precipitously. Not only do you risk killing the crew, but you also lose capacity to support other rescue missions. Killing a crew to rescue someone who's stable is not a good idea. I've burried too many friends for those types of missions.
As for the medical attendant, well, again, consider the risk. That's a 3rd person to kill on the flight, and substantially limits the fuel I can carry, the choice of aircraft I have, and makes the high altitude takeoff more dangerous, particularly with a light aircraft.