Your stay on Antarctica is designed to be as safe as possible. You will be given several informational safety briefs, lectures, and trainings to inform you of what to do during an emergency. Emergencies can vary from inclement weather to medical or psychiatric. Emergencies can and will happen unexpectedly, but if there’s one thing to remember, remember to SLOW DOWN ! We’ll explain this more later.

If you find yourself stuck during a weather emergency or natural disaster, the best thing to do is remain calm and follow the instructions of personnel in authority. They are informed on how to safely and securely transport crew and staff members to other parts of the continent, or if necessary, out of the continent. You will most likely be locked-in during a weather emergency, such as a hazardous storm. It is better to remain in shelter with your group than to try and disperse and risk getting lost.

Medical emergencies are rare, but they have a slight margin of occuring. As we mentioned in a previous chapter, medical help on the continent is limited only because of the expense of bringing material and equipment onto the continent. If you find yourself in the midst of a medical emergency, physicians and emergency staff will do their best to assess the emergency with the equipment they have. If it is a life-or-death emergency, you will most likely be flown out of the continent to the nearest country that can provide medical assistance. Again, it is important that you have travel and medical insurance if such an emergency occurs.

Psychiatric emergencies are extremely far and rare, but are more likely to occur during the winter season. Many tests and rigorous evaluations of expeditioners are put into place to avoid such emergencies. Evaluation of the expeditioner’s mental health, ability to make rational decisions, and mental sanity are tested to make sure expeditioners do not end up needing severe psychiatric help during their winter stay.

Lastly, the most important thing to keep in mind is to slow down. Stop, assess the situation, and make rational decisions based on the information you see during an emergency. Oftentimes, quick, rash decisions during emergency situations are more likely to agitate the situation more when there is no need to panic.