Born Jerri Lin Cahill near Salem, Ohio, Jerri Nielsen became an emergency physician and mother of three, then after a divorce signed on in 1998 as the doctor at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. During the 1999 winter, with temperatures around minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit and no flights until spring, she found a lump in her breast. Guided by doctors in the United States over slow satellite email, she biopsied herself, but the outdated supplies gave inconclusive results.

On July 11 an Air Force C-141 Starlifter from Christchurch, New Zealand flew over in total darkness and parachuted six bundles onto a drop zone lit by burning fuel barrels. With new ultrasound equipment Nielsen biopsied herself again and the slides confirmed breast cancer. She started hormone therapy and chemotherapy, training station mechanics and scientists to place IVs by practicing on potatoes and fruit. An LC-130 Hercules evacuated her on October 15. She went on to write the bestseller Icebound and speak widely before her death in June 2009 at 57.

• Why a plane could not land in winter: skis freeze to the ice, jet fuel gels and hydraulic fluid freezes
• The precedent of Leonid Rogozov, the Soviet doctor who removed his own appendix in Antarctica in 1961
• The station sits above 9,000 feet, adding thin air to her fight
• Susan Sarandon starred in a TV movie of her story, and House based an episode on it
• The cancer returned in 2005, yet she kept traveling, including trips back to Antarctica