Drunken Holiday Brawl on South Pole Leads to Evacuation

It's mighty slow week here in Brooklyn. I'm sitting on the couch watching old Bruce Brown surfing movies in preparation for a reporting trip to Monterey next week. Otherwise, I'm doing shit. You might call it a lull. You might call it boredom. And boredom is bad news. Evidence:

McMurdo Station, Antarctica - Marathon holiday sessions of Asshole and Quarters at the US-operated Amundsen-Scott South Pole research station, at the heart of Antartica, led to what one scientist described as a "drunken Christmas punch-up," and forced researchers to airlift two injured men to a hospital in New Zealand.

It was a real whizzer. From the Guardian:

After reports of the fight reached staff at McMurdo station, the headquarters of the US Antarctic Program, an Air Force Hercules was sent to pick up the injured men.

They were flown back to McMurdo, but it was decided the man's injuries were too serious to be treated in Antarctica and he was taken on to Christchurch, New Zealand, accompanied by a nurse and a paramedic.

"There was an altercation between two people -- there's no indication of the cause or of the background between the two folks," said Peter West, spokesman for the National Science Foundation.

The injured man is an employee of Raytheon Polar Services, one of America's largest defence contractors. A company spokeswoman, Val Carroll, said an investigation into the incident would be held. She said it was company policy not to release names of the two men.