Rickie's Antarctic Adventure 2: Medivac

You may or may not have seen it on the news but we had a medical emergency here. The USAP arranged a medivac for the person and the plane came and got them a few days ago. From what I heard they were "feeling a little better", but the Docs wanted to be safe and went ahead with the evac. The bosses asked us not to release any personal information about the person and I think that is still the case, so I'll just keep referring to the person as a "they". :)

They made is safely back to Christchurch and had the surgery they needed. After the surgery the doctors said it was a good thing we went through with the evac when we did or it could have gotten a lot worse. The person sent a greeting back here to us saying that they're fine now so YAY, everything is ok!

It was scary there for a while. Luckily it was the time of year that it was. Normally the runway isn't kept up in the winter since the last flight left here on March 6th. However our first "winter flights"(Winfly) are due in on the 20th. So they were already prepping the runway and the roads to the airfield. Once the Doc determined the person was potentially bad enough for an medivac, the crews kicked it into high gear so they could get the runway ready a couple weeks sooner. They really kicked some serious ass to get it done.

So all winter we were 153, now we're down to 152 people, but with Winfly coming starting the 20th that number will start to rise rapidly! Winfly only lasts a week but in that time our population will go from 152 to somewhere around 440, I think. So all of the quiet we experienced all winter is going away very soon. Also we're going to all go from single rooms to roommates, kill me now!

On the bright side. With the medivac coming they took the opportunity to send us some goodies on the plane. So we got some mail, and some fresh fruits and veggies! I had half a banana the night of the medivac and it was amazing! They decided to go ahead and save the fresh fruit for our Sunday brunch. So I got a whole bunch of delicious fresh fruit Sunday and it was out of this world. I didn't even care about the bacon and eggs and all that, I just got my fruit, went back to me room and savored every bite. MMMMMMMM

Here are a couple links to stories about the medivac by the way...
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/08/09/australian-rescue-team-headed-to-antarctica-to-rescue-american/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/08/09/australian-medics-fly-6500-km-to-antarctica-to-rescue-american/
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/south-pacific/7446660/NZ-air-force-helps-in-Antarctica-rescue

The sun is just itching to come up over the horizon. I can't wait to see it again...