| By
ROBERT WELLER Associated Press Writer
DENVER
(AP)--A physician airlifted from the South Pole in an unprecedented
winter rescue for treatment of a potentially life-threatening
gall bladder ailment arrived happy and upbeat on Sunday.
``I
want a shower and a shave,'' Dr. Ronald S. Shemenski said,
shrugging and smiling after arriving at Denver International
Airport. ``You keep seeing the same shirt on TV.''
Shemenski,
who passed a gallstone while still at the bottom of the
Earth, had traveled from the 24-hour darkness of the Antarctic
winter to a sunny Rocky Mountain spring after his rescue
from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station by the daring
crew of a twin-engine plane.
Shemenski,
59, of Oak Harbor, Ohio, had spent most of Saturday resting
at Punta Arenas, Chile, before the long flight to Denver
via Santiago and Miami.
He had
been nearly halfway into a one-year stint as the lone physician
among 50 researchers at the station when he was stricken
by pancreatitis, an inflammation of the pancreas that occurs
when a gallstone passes through the bile duct.
He came
to Denver to be evaluated at Swedish Hospital in suburban
Englewood, after being in contact with the hospital staff
from the South Pole.
On Friday,
in an interview in Punta Arenas, Shemenski told The Associated
Press that he had mixed feelings about leaving his colleagues
behind.
``If
I had my druthers, I'd be at the Pole. But the window of
opportunity to get me out was now. I couldn't sit around
and wait,'' he said.
The
59-year-old doctor said he feared a recurrence of the inflammation.
The
rescue crew had to make the first winter landing at the
South Pole. Flying to the polar station between February
and November is extremely dangerous both because of the
darkness and wind chills that can fall below 100 degrees
below zero.
However,
the flight turned out to be a milk run for the crew of the
ski-equipped Twin Otter aircraft, even though they had to
land on a snow strip lit only by burning trash cans.
During
the flight from the South Pole, Shemenski rested on a makeshift
bed atop two 55-gallon fuel drums. A tail wind pushed them
to Punta Arenas an hour ahead of schedule.
Dr.
Karl Erb, director of the Office of Polar Programs at the
National Science Foundation in Washington, praised the air
crew and everyone else who pulled off the rescue.
``We
in the U.S. Antarctic Program are extremely gratified,''
Erb said in a statement.
Shemenski's
was the second dramatic rescue in a week. On Tuesday, 11
American staffers were flown out of McMurdo Base on the
Antarctic coast across from New Zealand.
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