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Literally one of the worst places to fall seriously ill due to the fact you are absolutely and totally stuck in the actual middle-of-nowhere.

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Polar stations are even more inaccessible during polar winter with months of total darkness and it is just too dangerous to reach them. The winter-over crews need to be completely self-sufficient until the sun rises again.

For the big McMurdo US base they have flown in a few times in the winter for extremely important life or death medical reasons (last year: Aug 25 [1]) For the smaller other country bases it tends to be too dangerous and impossible. They are not able to use mcmurdo and the americans cant help either.

The general rule is that the Americans don't fly during the winter but they do tend to downplay and not publicize the times when they do fly.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/mcmurdo-statio...

Free (but admittedly useless) advice when you plan to fall seriously ill:

- do not get on a cruise ship

- do not get off at a remote island

From what I gathered from the article the person who got off was a resident of Tristan? They have such limited shipping options that this might have been the only way for them to travel from any mainland. Not sure though, but I don't think they got off there to seek medical assistance.

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