One of the results of having the only hospital facility in this part of the world is that you get requests for critical care support from a variety of unexpected sources. Such a request came in about a week ago when a Russian vessel contacted us to say that one of their sailors had suffered a burst appendix. Emergency surgery was performed on the sailor but conditions on the ship were not ideal and the sailor suffered a serious infection. As soon as the appendix burst the captain of the ship decided to head for McMurdo as far as he could. Yesterday they were within helicopter range and at about 8:00PM last night a very large Russian helicopter arrived on the station with their patient. Fortunately the medical personnel on the ship had managed to stabilize the sailor but it was important to get him on to civilization as quickly as possible. He will spend the night here on station and then leave on the C17 on Tuesday.

A kind of funny side note is that about 18 people from the ship accompanied the sailor when he arrived. The leader of the group persuaded the station manager to open the station store to let them do a little shopping. And shop they did. There was barely room for the passengers on the helicopter when they departed the station for their return trip to the ship. I wonder what the outcome of this event would have been back in the cold war days.