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Master Sgt. Jake Chappelle of Lewis-McChord’s 446th Reserve Airlift Wing confirmed that a crew from the base south of Tacoma made the flight. The active-duty 62nd Airlift Wing also had airmen on the rescue. A storm delayed a flight attempt Saturday.
Renee-Nicole Douceur slept for the whole plane ride to New Zealand for medical treatment. She described the flight in an email after landing in Christchurch.
Douceur, 58, is a Seabrook, N.H., resident who worked as a manager for research station contractor Raytheon Polar Services Co. She asked for an emergency evacuation after having what doctors believed was a stroke in August, but officials rejected her request because of bad weather, saying that sending a rescue plane was too dangerous and that her condition wasn’t life-threatening.
She said she was scheduled for tests today.
A Raytheon spokesman had said that the decision to evacuate Douceur rested with the National Science Foundation. The NSF said it must balance the potential benefit of an evacuation against the possibility of harm for the patient, the flight crew and workers on the ground.
Douceur’s flight was the second medical rescue McChord-based crews have performed in Antarctica this year. The first came in late June when a McChord team rescued a sick contractor at Antarctica’s McMurdo Station. Seven McChord-based airmen received Air Medals for that risky flight.
Lewis-McChord’s 62nd and 446th wings have been supplying NSF work in Antarctica for more than a decade through a mission dubbed Operation Deep Freeze.
Airmen from those units fly Boeing-made C-17 Globemaster IIIs in the world’s most challenging noncombat conditions to deliver food, materials and people to McMurdo.
Staff writer Adam Ashton and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
