Ms Douceur, a retired nuclear scientist from New Hampshire, complains that she should have been rescued sooner and points to the evacuation in August 2001 of Ron Shemanski, a South Pole scientist who suffered life-threatening pancreatitis, as proof that urgent flights can be made outside the usual February to October aviation shutdown. Temperatures plunge as low as minus 70F during that period and must rise to minus 50F before a flight can operate safely.