******************************************************** SURVIVAL, MEDICAL ******************************************************** ******************** MEDICAL FACILITIES ******************** __________ QUESTION: If someone becomes ill, where do they go and who takes care of them? ANSWER by Terry Trimingham, Field Operation Communications Center, McMurdo Station, on January 3rd, 1995 When someone gets sick in McMurdo, they go to the medical facility we have here. It is actually a complete clinic, but being the most comprehensive medical care unit in Antarctica, the staff likes to think of it as a small hospital. We have a 4-bed ward, a treatment room, x- ray facilities, a pharmacy, and an operating room. The hospital is staffed in summer by 3 Navy physicians (2 of whom are flight physicians), a summer dental officer, and 3 IDCs (independent duty corpsman). The IDCs are similar to physicians assistants; they are advanced corpsmen trained to go places where there are no doctors, so they know a lot. In the winter there is only one physician, and 3 IDCs. At Palmer and South Pole Stations, the facilities are much smaller and there is only one civilian physician at both places. Thankfully, most of the medical problems encountered are not serious in nature and the staff here is able to handle most cases. The people who come down to Antarctica have to pass a rather rigorous physical examination in order to get here. If something very serious develops, the Navy will medivac the patient to Christchurch, New Zealand. __________ QUESTION: What kind of sickness can you get in Antarctica? ANSWER from Deane Rink Since Antarctica is a place where different researchers from all over America and the world come together, the most common type of sickness is viral infection caused by strains of viruses that all people in one local or regional area might well be immune from. In Antarctica, one is exposed to viruses where no immunity exists. Usually this is referred to as the McMurdo crud, and has the same symptoms as any common flu or bad cold. In general, Antarctica is one of the most sterile places on Earth, so the chances of picking up any local disease (like one might in the tropics) is rare. __________ QUESTION: We read that planes can't land in Antarctica during the winter. What happens is someone becomes seriously ill or injured during the winter? Are they treated in Antarctica or somehow taken elsewhere? If they are evacuated, what type of transport is used? ANSWER from Ann Stevens on January 20, 1995: If someone becomes seriously ill or injured during the winter, there are medical facilities in McMurdo Station. We have a small hospital with two beds and a Navy doctor and his staff are here through the winter. If someone has been critically injured and must be evacuated, then an aircraft will be launched from California to New Zealand and then to Antarctica. The planes are the LC-130s that you may have seen on the television program. They have skies and so they are able to land on the ice. The prefer not do this and rarely have to come down in the winter, but if an emergency arises they have the capability to land during the winter. ************ SHIPWRECKS ************ __________ QUESTION: When whale trackers are tracking blue whales, what is the percentage that the boat will run aground or into a glacier? ANSWER: from Guy Guthridge, Program Manager of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Program: No matter what its mission, a ship in Antarctic waters is likely to encounter uncharted waters and icebergs that move in random ways with the wind and ocean currents. Since the crew is so vigilant to these almost continuous dangers, the likelihood of hitting something is low. The last two sinkings of ships in the Antarctic occurred when they were trapped in sea ice that squeezed the hulls until they leaked. These were not "collisions" as much as they were the result of a wind shift that closed the ice around the ship. ********************************* COLD, FROSTBITE, HYPOTHERMIA ********************************* __________ QUESTION: Do you have problems with frost bite? ANSWER from Craig Mundell We do have some problems with frostbite here due to the extremely cold weather. We increase our chances of not getting it by wearing our extreme cold weather gear when it is very cold. Also, everyone here has to go to a safety lecture that teaches you how to avoid frostbite and hypothermia. So, due to good education and the proper clothing we are able to decrease our chances of getting frostbite. __________ QUESTION: What do you do if someone gets frostbite? ANSWER from Chris Hanson on December 22, 1994: The best way to deal with frostbite is not to get it in the first place! Seriously, we spend a lot of effort to make sure it doesn't happen to begin with. Frostbite isn't real fun. If you do get it, it's more of what you DON'T do that's important. You don't touch it, or jar it. Your skin is very brittle and fragile when it is frozen like that, and if you rub it, it's very easy to break the delicate internal goop and cells that make up your skin and muscle. Then, when it thaws out it's as good as gone. Fortunately if the frostbite isn't too severe, it can sometimes heal. Minor cases of surface frostbite are called frostnip, and can be dealt with just by getting in out of the cold and wind. Frostnip is just a freezing of the very top layer of skin, and you can afford to damage a little of that and not really worry. For deeper frostbite, you have to rewarm the skin. Usually you do this with warm water, just over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. You get a big pot of warm water, and immerse your foot or hand or whatever into the water until the temperature of the frozen area is brought back up. Once you've rewarmed it, you can't let it freeze again or it'll be history for sure. At that point, all you can do is wait. In minor frostbite, that might be all that happens. In bad frostbite, you'll get big old ugly blisters where the skin and tissue died. Severe frostbite, where the tissues freeze all the way to the bone, sometimes means that part will never heal or grow back. After many weeks the injured toe or finger or whatever will just fall off. In earlier times when good medical care wasn't available, a frostbite injury often would become infected and they would have to amputate (cut it off) in order to keep the infection from spreading to the rest of the body. So you can see why it's important to us not to get frostbite in the first place. Another thing to remember is that if you get frostbite once and recover from it, that part of your body is more susceptible to getting it again. So if you make the mistake once and get away with it, you better be extra careful after that. One of the quickest ways to get frostbite down here is to have droplets of cold fuel splatter on your skin. Water freezes at 32 degrees, and once it's frozen it won't splatter very well (because it's ice now!). But gasoline can get very very very cold (far below zero) and still be a liquid. And a liquid spreads over your skin and sucks the heat out of it in the blink of an eye. So if just a single drop of this super-cold gasoline hits your skin, the entire area of skin that it hits will drop to the temperature of the fuel, and you'll have instant frostbite. __________ QUESTION: Do you like the cold? Do you ever get used to it? ANSWERS from Jon Rinkenberger and Chris Hanson on December 13, 1994 The weather down here is definitely cold. I have been to both extremes of the temperature scale. In Arizona with 115+ heat to here with -25 cold. That is not real cold for down here, but cold enough. This is definitely not a place for people who dislike the cold, but for me I like the cold more than the heat. When I first arrived here I felt really cold. In a day or two I started to adjust to my new environment. After a week I was comfortable with the cold. The clothing and cold weather gear that I wear makes a huge difference in how the cold affects me. I have no problems with the cold and it is now a normal part of my life. I guess I don't "love" the cold, but it's never bothered me. You really do get used to it, actually. I came down here at the end of August, which is the end of the winter down here. There was some pretty nasty weather, but I quickly became accustomed to it. We have really nice parkas that the National Science Foundation issues to us. Big, thick, and lots of pockets. And they keep you warm anywhere. During the summer down here (now) it gets up to about 40 degrees (Fahrenheit). Because we're all already acclimated to this really cold weather, this seems like a day at the beach. I go around wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a wind-breaker. I see other guys wearing shorts, and muscle shirts. Back in the Real World, say in Denver (where I'm from) nobody wears shorts in 40 degree weather. That's considered _coooolllllldddd_. But down here, it seems warm. Of course, nobody stays out in it for too long down here. No sunbathing in your swimsuit. They do have a 'polar plunge' skinny-dip during the winter. They cut a hole in the ice, and people jump through, and then jump right back out. Really quickly. The funny part is that the water is "warmer" than the air outside during the winter. The weather might be 30-40 degrees "below zero" outside, but the water never gets below 32 degrees above. (Or it'd be ice, naturally.) So getting "out" of the plunge is actually colder than getting "in". They have a hut set up very near by to warm you back up. I never stopped to wonder why the whole bay doesn't freeze. I suspect the ice that does form probably insulates the rest of the water -- keeps it away from the freezing-cold air above. Or maybe it's something totally different. __________ QUESTION: Has anyone ever gotten hypothermia? ANSWER from Nicole Wertz on December 20, 1994 Yes, several people who have visited Antarctica have suffered mild or severe hypothermia. Most are caught and treated in time just by having them put on more layers of clothes and moving around. If its a severe case of hypothermia then they are sent to the medical station and are treated there. __________ QUESTION: What do you do if someone gets hypothermia? ANSWER from Craig Mundell on December 20, 1994: When someone gets hypothermia, the first thing done is to bring the person inside. The doctors then either put the person on a type of rack with a heating blanket or soak them in very hot water (approximately 110 to 120 deg. F) until the patient's body core temperature rises. Once their temperature is up and they are conscious, the doctors keep them on base until all of their vital signs are stable. Once this happens, they are sent back to Christchurch, New Zealand, for further medical treatment. Overall, this is a very long process. __________ QUESTION: Does mucus or a person's tears freeze in the harsh Antarctica Climate? ANSWER from Elizabeth Felton on January 16, 1995 I never had any tears freeze. Sometimes my eyes would water but I always had my goggles on so my face was relatively warm. I suppose they might freeze if they were exposed to the air for too long. I would feel my nose hairs, and I suppose mucus, freeze almost immediately when I would go outside. I could still breathe, it would just be a little harder and it wasn't painful at all. It would thaw when I went inside. You may have seen pictures of men with beards in the Antarctic. You probably noticed that they have ice and frost all over their beards. This is what happens to your nose hairs, but on a smaller scale. When I was outside for too long, the hair on my head would begin to freeze. It was pretty funny, it looked like I was going gray! ANSWER from Ann Stevens on February 14, 1995: A person's tears and mucus from their nose does freeze in the harsh Antarctic climate. Sometimes, at places such as the South Pole or Polar plateau, it takes only seconds. The eye lashes may become frozen and sometimes it will even freeze the eye lids together making it painful and difficult to open your eyes. The secretions around the nose may also freeze causing pain around the openings of the nose. In one case, someone had secretions drip from his nose onto his chin causing frostbite on a small area of the chin when it froze and was not wiped off. The best way to thaw out would be to go into a warm building. If that is not available, a shelter of snow or a tent is another way to thaw out. ********** SURVIVAL ********** __________ QUESTION: What are the chances of someone surviving in an isolated area? ANSWER from Brooks Montgomery on December 21, 1994 How long someone can survive in an isolated part of Antarctica depends on what they have for emergency supplies and how cold the area is. We send out scientists on local flights (within a 100 miles) with survival bags that weigh 55 pounds; these bags are for two people for three days. In the survival bags there are: a tent, two lightweight sleeping bags, and a backpack stove that has two liters of fuel. (The stoves will also burn aircraft fuel; the stoves are how we get drinking water: you have to melt the snow and ice to be able to drink.) There is also a shovel, a snow saw for building igloos and snow walls, freeze- dried food for three days, tent anchors (stakes and ice-pitons), cord, a hammer (to drive in the ice-pitons), a signal mirror (which can flash the sun at an aircraft from fifty miles away), flares, smoke bombs, a survival book, a comic book (to lighten up the humor for the emergency), cook pot, and a knife. We have friends who have been stuck in the deep field for almost thirty days. . .they had just enough supplies with them. It is possible to airdrop (parachute) emergency supplies to a group if a plane couldn't land for some reason. __________ QUESTION: How long would it take for a person wearing street clothes to die in the freezing cold waters of Antarctica ANSWER from Terry Trimingham in February, 1995 The water here is only 29 F, so if you were wearing regular street clothes, I am not sure exactly, but I think I can safely say you would be dead in less than 5 minutes if you fell in the water in Antarctica! (It wouldn't take long at all if you jumped in wearing a regular bathing suit!)