Heading into the night

It’s that time of year again to say farewell to the sun until September.

The sun peeking through the columns of the A1 berthing wing.

At 6:48pm local time tonight, the equinox occurred when the sun was exactly halfway below the horizon for us. Now the last moment when we will actually see the sun’s rays will be anyone’s guess.

The atmosphere refracts or bends the light upwards so even when the sun itself is below the horizon, we can usually see its image for a couple of days after it sets if the weather is clear.

Today the weather was gorgeous. After some cold temps in the high minus 70s F earlier this week and then some winds up to 15 knots that stirred up the atmosphere a bit, it’s now about -70F with light wind and the waning sunlight casts soft pink light across the frozen plateau. Hopefully the visibility will remain clear for the next few days so that we’ll get to see the sun sink slowly towards the other hemisphere. And tomorrow night is our Sunset Dinner feast, photos certainly to follow.

In other Pole news, our trauma team held a training session in which I went over patient assessment in the field. The most important take home message was if the patient is outside, get them inside pronto and forget about the assessment stuff you just learned because it won’t matter much if your patient is frozen. Then after the meeting, the trauma team decided to do an impromptu practice drill on how to restrain and backboard a combative patient. Since the patient had no idea he was about to participate in a training exercise, he was truly combative.

The original targeted victim wasn’t in his office and the team was not to be disappointed so they marched around the corner and found our engineer Weeks, of the toilet paper wall fame, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Despite the struggling, he was no match for about 10 team members who picked him up, plopped him on the backboard and strapped him down. They then practiced their board lifting and carrying techniques out of the computer lab and down the hall to the Galley where he was deposited onto a table for the gathering dinner crowd.

Weeks isn’t really an innocent victim…I must mention that he interrupted our trauma team meeting by opening the door and hurling ping pong balls at us so he should only expect revenge sooner or later. You can bet that as the winter goes on, the pranks will get more elaborate as people will be looking for ways to keep themselves entertained during the long dark winter.
To add to the humilation, he's wearing signs saying "Trauma Team Rules" and "You're Next Nate", the original intended victim.