Ice Bound (TV)

Academy Award-winner Susan Sarandon stars in this harrowing true story of Dr. Jerri Nielsen, the cancer-stricken physician stranded at a South Pole research station who under dangerous circumstances, and with the help of co-workers, treated her own illness. Based on the New York Times best-selling book Ice Bound: A Doctor's Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole, the film tells the story of how in 1999, 46-year-old physician Nielsen decided to leave Ohio and spend a year at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station on Antarctica, one of the most remote and perilous places on Earth. Conditions at the station would be far from manageable, with winter temperatures as low as 100 degrees below zero. Joining a team of researchers, construction workers and support staff, Dr. Nielsen was solely responsible for the mental and physical health of all fellow inhabitants stranded at the station through the winter. During the long Antarctic winter, Dr. Nielsen discovered a lump in her breast and was forced to self-administer a biopsy. Communicating via e-mail with doctors in the United States, she learned that the cancer was aggressive and rapid-growing. In order for her to survive several months until conditions would allow planes to land and rescue her from the continent, the doctors concurred that she would need to begin chemotherapy treatments immediately. Risking death, rescuers heroically air-dropped the necessary supplies to the station and, along with the help of fellow "Polies," including close friends Big John Penny and Claire "Fingers" Furinski, Nielsen began her debilitating chemotherapy treatments. Eventually, the Air National Guard made a daring rescue, dropped off a replacement physician and returned Nielsen to the United States where she was able to seek full medical attention to treat her cancer.