17 November, 2000

FYI answer for 11/16/00

To stay warm, it is important to eat before you go out, stay hydrated and take extra food and water. It is also important to dress in layers, but do not wear cotton as the first layer, and exercise when you get cold by moving around a lot.

By eating, you are putting fuel in your internal furnace. When cotton clothing gets wet, it stays wet, which is dangerous in the cold. The quickest way to get warm is to exercise, like jumping, swinging your arms around and walking.

We've had three days of snow and today was the worst, not just the weather but the luck. We had snow all night and all day today. At one point we tried to shovel through drifts that had built up our path to other huts and the outhouse. It just didn't matter; they where back in less than thirty minutes. To pass the time, all we could do was try to talk through our next day of work.

We got another late daybreak and we decided to try and use it. One of the seals that we had put a heart monitor on before was now in sight close to our huts, so we were going to take a weight sled out to get the animal to get a weight recorded. It turned out to be a bad twist of luck. Yoko was injured when the Spryte tractor rolled backwards in the snowdrifts. We decided that it was something that needed medical attention. McMurdo Station has a hospital and Firestation. They also have an ambulance and helicopters. Unfortunately we are so far out that by the time anyone could come to us, we could have her into McMurdo. A helicopter would be faster, but the weather was not making that an option. Katsu and I drove in with Yoko in the Spryte. The trip took an hour and a half in the slow moving Spryte. When we got there we learned that she had a broken leg. It was after midnight. They braced her leg and we talked about sending her t Christchurch, New Zealand, in the mornng.

FYI

Over fifty people alternate ________________ at the McMurdo Firestation. The have firedrills and practice situations often to be ______________ if something should occur. There is also a doctor on-call ________ hours a day, ______________ days a week. Accidents can _______________, even here in

This is our camp in a condition 2 snowstorm

This is our camp Spryte. Four or five people can travel in this but it is a slow mover.