It was -55C outside. The whole base dropped to almost -20C inside, and we had no heating or lights and no link to the outside world

I shouldn’t even have been there. Winter in Antarctica means living with only 13 other people for eight months, including 103 days when the sun doesn’t rise. Everything is hostile and alien: the temperature, the darkness, the wind, the isolation. People rarely stay for more than one winter at a time. I was heading home in early 2014, but the person who was meant to replace me couldn’t stay, so I went back.

I was the base doctor, but I did little actual medical work, especially in winter, when there are so few people on base and everyone is pretty young and fit. I ended up doing everything from incinerating the rubbish to servicing vehicles. It’s important that everyone knows roughly how the base works, in case anything goes wrong.

And in that second winter it did. We’d already had a few minor power cuts lasting several minutes, when we lost power for nearly 24 hours with the temperature outside at -55.4C. We had no heating, lights, running water or sewage systems, and no link to the outside world other than a hand-held satellite phone; at one point the whole base dropped to almost -20C inside.

We split up into teams. While the plumber, mechanic and electrician focused on fixing the generator, and the science team worked to protect the IT systems and data they’d collected, I teamed up with two others to fetch the backup generator about 1km away. It was pitch black and took us six hours just to guide the bulldozer into place, slowly hauling the generator along in treacherous conditions. I was numbed by the cold and exhaustion, but fuelled by the urgent need to fix the situation. We were riding Ski-Doos; they’re not meant to run at less than -30C, so we had to stop every hour and drive them into the garage to warm up under hot air blowers (powered by another small generator normally used to defrost large machinery). Otherwise, they’d just stop working, as would we.

When we finally got the backup generator to the garage and started warming it up, the mechanic arrived and found that it was broken. That was the real low point for me. At moments like that, when everything felt desperate, I had to laugh. In fact, I don’t think I’ve laughed as much in my life, falling on my face on the frozen garage floor as we tried to move huge cables covered in ice, or when we had to sweep up freshly defrosted sewage spewing from the pipes after the power finally returned.

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We knew we weren’t going to die. Although it was pretty hairy for a while, we had enough fuel and food to last until the next ship arrived. The field parties that go out in tents during the summer cope in pretty harsh conditions, so we knew that, as a last resort, we could manage with that basic equipment.

But the difference from the life we’d got used to on the base couldn’t be greater. Normally, you could walk around in shorts and a T-shirt, go to the gym, watch a DVD, send emails. Without power, we reverted to the things explorers relied on 100 years ago. There’s a great photo of us all sitting indoors, in these incredibly hi-tech surroundings, with all our outdoor gear on, crouched around lamps and stoves trying to keep warm.

The technical team worked wonders and after 24 hours got enough power back for some heat and light, but we were without toilets or showers for a few weeks; with power limited, we weren’t running the base as normal until the following summer. We had all been out of touch with family and friends for days – which wouldn’t have been unusual 10 years ago, but given the regular contact we’re used to today, some reassuring phone calls had to be made.

We barely slept for the first few days after the power cut, monitoring the systems as they came back online. The effort put in by the team was amazing. Dogged determination, some gallows humour and a genuine sense of duty both to each other and the base kept us going. We can survive an Antarctic winter because of technology and human spirit. One failed us then, but the other didn’t.

• As told to Katie Antoniou.

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