Ill worker rescued from reseach station in Antarctica now in a hospital in Australia

By ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — An Australian who fell ill while working at an Antarctic research station is now in a hospital in Australia after being rescued by an icebreaker. The Australian Antarctic Division said Sunday that the “unwell expeditioner” was transferred from the icebreaker to a hospital in Hobart in Tasmania state. The division has not identified the patient or specified the medical condition. The icebreaker’s round trip between the division’s headquarters in Hobart and Australia’s Casey Station covered more than 6,500 kilometers and took more than two weeks as the Southern Hemisphere winter became spring. The patient was flown by a helicopter on Sept. 3 from the station on an ice cap to the icebreaker Nuyina 144 kilometers away.