History: A Doctor Cut Out His Own Appendix In Antarctica

In 1960, a 27-year-old surgeon Leonid Rogozov accompanying the Antarctic research team and the only doctor on the team, suddenly experienced general weakness, nausea, and moderate fever, and later pain in the lower right portion of his abdomen.

He immediately diagnosed that he had appendicitis and that the hospital was so far away that no one could save him except himself.

He planned carefully how to do this operation on his own and asked two of his teammates to be his assistants.

The operation started at 02:00 local time on 1 May with the help of a driver and meteorologist, who provided instruments and held a mirror so Rogozov could observe areas not directly visible.

General anesthesia was not possible, and he was only injected with the local anesthetic drug Novocaine in the abdominal wall.

"There was a lot of bleeding, but I pressed on, opened the peritoneum, I accidentally damaged the appendix and had to repair it, my head was getting dizzy and every five minutes I had to rest for 20-25 seconds" .

"Finally I found the damn appendix and I saw black spots on the tail, which meant that in another day it could have perforated".

But he didn't fail. By about 04:00 the operation was complete.

After taking antibiotics and sleeping pills, he fell into a deep sleep... and two weeks later, he was back at his job

The self-surgery, which was photographed by his colleagues, captured the imagination of the Soviet public at the time. In 1961 he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour.