Monday - January 17, 2005

No Sympathy

That’s right.  Recall the news stories about the skiers in Utah buried under a 30 foot avalanche of snow. How many times are we being told they were warned not to go into that area?  Probably not as often as hearing about the story of their being buried, right?

Well, I don’t care.  They got what they deserved.  Fucking people think they can go where they want and do what they want even after being warned.  They now paid the ultimate price.

This story brings back memories of an incident we had in Antarctica.  It is a cold, inhospitable continent and does not care if you live or die.  Crevasses are frequent and often stealthy.  You walk along and before you know it your body breaks through a thin crust of snow camouflaging a pit below and it’s “sayonara, baby!  Welcome to human popsicle-ville.” Crevasses are just that, crevasses.  Some are small.  Others are huge.  Many will swallow a human being.  Basically you fall into this sloping pit and become wedged at the bottom. The deeper the pit, the harder you get wedged in.  With temperatures at zero or below most of the time it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out it will leech your body heat in no time flat.

So there you have the basics of a crevasse.

There are safety officials in Antarctica trained to locate these crevasses near by the areas where we worked.  We could not just “wander” around the premises.  For the most part, McMurdo is about a mile square.  It sits at the edge of McMurdo Sound.  The runway is on the ice sitting on top of the water in the sound.  So we travel over it.  For recreation, trails are laid out on top of the ice that head towards Scott Base, about a mile or so away.  Other trails in and around Scott and some of the runway areas (there are three runways) are also available for walking or skiing.

That’s it.  We can’t deviate from those trails because those areas have not been tested or certified.  A series of colored flags is used to designate safe areas and prohibited areas (where crevasses may be present.) Too, these halfwits (like everyone on station) had all been to the field safety courses telling them NOT to stray off the path and watch for black flags.

So what happens? 

Here’s how I wrote about it in my journal:

Some winter-over arrivals decided they could skirt the rule concerning black flags marking the trails on and around the island. Seems four of them were walking along, three guys and a girl, on their way to the ski hill when they figured they’d take a short cut. All of a sudden, just a few yards off the trail, the girl disappeared from sight. Just like that. One second she was there, the next she was gone. The guys looked around and cautiously approached where she’d last been, already keenly aware of the deep doo-doo they were in.

She was wedged in a crevasse several feet down. Fortunately, one of them had the foresight to bring a radio along and called search and rescue. The SAR team arrived within half an hour and, roped off, went in there after her. Before the SAR team got to her, though, the girl was talking to the guys above and basically telling them what to say to her family and friends. Every minute she was in there lowered her core body temperature because the ice penetrated her clothing and by virtue of her being compressed in there, she lost all her clothing’s insulating abilities.

When Ted, the SAR member, got her out her body temp had already dropped several degrees. All were rushed to medical attention and there were no serious injuries.

Upon completion of the “save”, SAR did a check of the area and determined that had she walked just a few more yards, she’d have fallen to her death as the crevasses widened at that point and no bottom could be detected.

Probably just like these skiers, these 4 figure, “hell, it’s right over there, about 100 yards away.  We don’t need to walk a mile out of our way to get there. “ They could see this other trail.  They also see black flags but the ground is smooth and unbroken.  (for those of you having difficulty imagining this scenario, picture this.  You are walking along a river and want to get across but don’t want to walk to the bridge a half mile downstream.  So you try to walk across the river.)

So you can understand why I do not feel much pity for these folks in Utah. When officials trained in certain things tell you NOT to go somewhere, it’s generally with good reason.  If you go, you do so at the risk of death.

Posted by Ranting Right Wing Howler     on 01/17/2005 at 06:56 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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