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American Morning

Shemensky Safe After Rescue From South Pole

Aired April 27, 2001 - 10:09   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Now for the latest on a story we've been following closely here on CNN, the daring polar rescue of an ailing physician. A small plane plucked him from his Antarctic outpost, the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, and has shuttled him now to southern Chile.

CNN's Gary Tuchman is there. He is at Puntas Arenas and he's joining us now by video phone -- Gary, hello.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Daryn.

You might think Ronald Shemenski would sleep in the day after his historic and grueling rescue. But the doctor was up before dawn, doing interviews with people like us. The fact is Dr. Shemenski says he feels just fine. He knows he needs medical treatment, but he's getting it early and he says he's doing very well.

Dr. Shemenski is the first person ever to be medivaced out of the South Pole during the polar winter, which stretches from February to October. He arrived here in the southern tip of South America, right next to the Tierra del Fuego and Punta Arenas, Chile just before 4:00 yesterday afternoon on a small private plane piloted by a Canadian rescue crew that flew 4,200 miles round trip in weather up to 80 below zero Fahrenheit to get him at the Pole.

Now, the doctor tells us if he wasn't responsible for 49 other scientists medically at the South Pole, he would have stayed. He never would have left, despite his medical problems.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. RONALD SHEMENSKI, EVACUATED FROM SOUTH POLE: I didn't want to go. No, I didn't want to leave them behind. We have a good team down there this year, a very good team. I'm prejudiced, but I think it's probably one of the best teams they've had down there in the winter. And we were getting quite close and it was very difficult to leave them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TUCHMAN: To give you an idea of how well he feels, he's planning on flying commercially back to Denver. He's going to take two different planes and make three different stops. He's going to stop at a town called Puerto Montt, Chile, which is also in southern Chile. Then he'll stop in Santiago, Chile, the capital of Chile. Then he'll stop in Miami, Florida before arriving in Denver. He expects to leave either today or tomorrow and he could be in a hospital in Denver as early as Sunday -- Daryn, back to you.

KAGAN: Gary, I realize it's still in the rescue portion, but this doctor is the third in recent times who's had to be airlifted out in a crisis situation. Is Raytheon or the National Science Foundation reassessing how this program is run in the winter?

TUCHMAN: Well, both Raytheon and the National Science Foundation point out they've been doing these types of trips and scientists have been going to the South Pole since the 1950s and it's certainly very coincidental that in the last two years you've had three doctors who've had to leave. So they all say it's something they'll examine, the possibility of having two doctors there.

But one thing they say is there really, frankly, isn't enough work for two doctors at the South Pole. But it is something they're taking a look at, yes.

KAGAN: Gary Tuchman, CNN from Puntas Arenas, Chile. Thank you.

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