It’s the middle of June, and at the South Pole, that means it’s the middle of winter. At the Amundsen-Scott research station, the world outside is frigid, as it has been for 14 million years. The world is also dark, but at least everyone working within remembers when it wasn’t: The Sun set for the first and last time of the year on March 20, and night spent the next month creeping across the sky. Sunrise won’t happen until August. In the meantime those 48 people are exiled, cordoned off by storms, ice, winds—and the seemingly endless night.

Soon, though, there will be only 47. Something is wrong with one of them—wrong enough that the National Science Foundation is right now undertaking a rare and risky medical evacuation from the middle of the Antarctic ice sheet.

A rowdy Christmas brawl is enough to warrant an extraction in the summer, but the winter lever only gets pulled under extreme circumstances.

A rowdy Christmas brawl is enough to warrant an extraction in the summer, but the winter lever only gets pulled under extreme circumstances. Winter residents undergo rigorous health screenings to ensure that this doesn’t happen often, because no trips will come through until October. The National Science Foundation, which runs the research station, had to be convinced to send an emergency plane to rescue the unnamed scientist.

On June 14, after a day and a half of deliberation, they agreed: A plane departed from Calgary, Canada and will arrive in the middle of the largest desert on the planet after a five-day trip, as long as the weather holds up. Then, it’ll turn around and bring the patient thousands of miles to a facility where they can get the treatment they need.

A Rare Rescue

Only twice since the station opened in 1957 has a medical emergency forced the perilous flight to the pole: Ron Shemenski’s pancreatitis in 2001 and Barry McCue’s gall bladder removal in 2003. Jerri Nielsen performed her own biopsy in 1999 after her breast cancer didn’t qualify her for an the trip. Neither did Renee-Nicole Douceur’s stroke twelve years later. Both were picked up a couple months later by the first resupply planes of the spring.

People working at the station know that they’re on their own. “You have to be extra careful all the time [and] more safety-minded than we are back home,” says Katy Jensen, a site manager who has spent three winters at Amundsen-Scott. “You’re utterly relying on each other, especially for emergency situations.” If something goes wrong, help will only come from within.

It isn’t out of callousness that the NSF is so choosy about rescuing scientists from exile. If anything, it’s pragmatism. “Deciding [whether to evacuate someone] is an intensive process,” says Kelly Falkner, director of the National Science Foundation’s Division of Polar Programs. They start out with the medical side of things: how serious the problem is, and how urgently it needs to be treated. “We have to weigh risk assessments that come from our medical opinions—and we get more than one.”

Then, they balance the risk of leaving that medical problem untreated with the risk of something happening to the planes during their treacherous flight across the continent. “And then we also have to look at all of the operational needs,” Falkner continues. They have to see if they can get the right planes and what the weather looks like in and around Antarctica.

Flying Otters

Most jet fuel freezes at temperatures about 30 degrees warmer than the winter average at the station. There are also no paved runways. There is only ice, as far as the eye can see. Actually, the ice stretches far beyond what the eye can see. The Antarctic ice sheet is about one and a half times the size of the continental United States, and it’s more than 9,000 feet thick at the pole. The plane needs to land on the ice and snow itself—with skis.

Kenn Borek Air, Ltd., is a Canadian firm contracted by the National Science Foundation to conduct these rare emergency flights. They have Twin Otters, planes that satisfy all of the extreme requirements for the evacuation. “This particular aircraft is about the only one that can withstand the temperature regimes at the height of the austral winter, but even then we’re very careful,” Falkner explains. The Canadian firm dispatched two Twin Otters: One to conduct the rescue, the other to sit at the edge of the continent in case something goes wrong.

The flight to the South Pole takes at least five days, depending on the cooperation of the weather. Neither the plane nor the pilot can fly the whole way without stopping. Once it arrives at the research station, the plane will pick up the scientist whose emergency forced the NSF’s hand. Where they bring their doubtlessly unhappy cargo depends on the nature of the emergency and, of course, what the weather looks like along the route.

The NSF isn’t the only one doing cost-benefit analyses when it comes to the wintering at Amundsen-Scott. Every year, about fifty people volunteer for exile in the center of Earth’s largest desert, and each of them has done their own calculus. The cold and the isolation bring their own scientific rewards; astronomical and atmospheric research conducted during the Antarctic night can be done nowhere else in the world. “Every day you can walk outside and see something new,” says Jensen. “And you might even be the only person seeing it.” The benefits, whether scientific, professional, or personal, outweigh the risks.