Plane Leaves South Pole With Ill Worker
Sunday, September 21, 2003
(6:44 AM ET)
By Chris Hawley
Associated Press Writer
It is the third such rescue in four years, and is occurring in darkness. The sun doesn't come up at the South Pole until Tuesday.
** FILE PHOTO **
Dr. Jerri Nielsen, who was a National Science Foundation physician, is shown at the ceremonial South Pole in this 1999 photo. Nielsen waited two months before telling her fellow researchers at the South Pole about the lump she had discovered in her breast. Four years after her dramatic rescue, Nielsen says her heart goes out to a man now trapped in a storm at the remote outpost with a gall bladder problem that may require surgery.
Image Credit: AP/National Science Foundation
AP
A rescue flight took off from the South Pole Sunday carrying an ailing worker from an American research station, the company that manages the facility said.
The Twin Otter aircraft lifted off from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station at about 5 a.m. EDT and was expected to arrive at about 3:30 p.m. EDT at the British Rothera Air Station, some 1,350 miles away, said Valerie Carroll of Raytheon Polar Services.
The flight had been delayed for days because of wind and snow during the southern hemisphere's spring season, and harsh weather remained a danger, Carroll said.
``Defintely the weather at the bottom of the world is very fickle in the spring,'' she said.
(More: company)
2003 © The Associated Press.
Dan
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