Leonid Rogozov performed a surgery on himself since he had no choice.
He and a team of 12 had just finished building a new base when Leonid fell gravely ill. He diagnosed himself with acute appendicitis but being the only surgeon on the team, he had no help.
Leonid said when describing the ordeal in his diary, “I did not sleep at all last night. It hurts like the devil! A snow storm whipping through my soul, wailing like 100 jackals.”
After weighing all options and realising that there was no help, he knew he had to do something because his appendix was about to burst. He decided to perform an auto-appendectomy rather than die not doing anything.
“Still no obvious symptoms that perforation is imminent,” he wrote, “but an oppressive feeling of foreboding hangs over me… This is it… I have to think through the only possible way out – to operate on myself… It’s almost impossible… but I can’t just fold my arms and give up.”
Leonid was awarded for his bravery but shunned publicity and simply faced his job as a surgeon. Quite an impressive feat.
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