Swimming to Antarctica_ Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer - Lynne Cox [144]
The doctors—Gabriella Miotto, Laura King, and Susan Sklar— were to be positioned in two Zodiacs so they could monitor me during the swim. If one Zodiac broke down, the other could pull alongside me so I could continue. If a life-threatening situation developed during the swim, Anthony Block, the ship’s physician, would be in charge on board the ship.
We figured out where to position each of my crew members, as well as the CBS crew. Then Dr. Block had a request: he wanted to go through a drill with the doctors on the ship so they would know where everything was (medications, IV fluids, defibrillator, and so on) in case they needed to work with him on me. He asked me if I went into cardiac arrest during the swim and they brought me back aboard the ship did I want CBS to film it? I tried to think of how it could be useful, and the producer for CBS tried to convince us it was the right thing to do. Fortunately, Dan Cohen was sitting beside me. He could see that I was very uncomfortable with this, and he whispered, “Is this what you want?”
I shook my head.
“Then tell them,” Dan encouraged me.
My voice went kind of weirdly deep from the stress. “I don’t want anyone filming me if I’m like that,” I said.
The producer nodded. He said they would be able to document my being pulled out of the water, and that would be enough to show what happened.
This was tough stuff for me. I understood we had to be prepared, to have an emergency plan, but all this focus on death was pushing my mind to a place it didn’t want to go.
Dr. Block’s run-through drill with my three doctors—Laura, Gabriella, and Susan—made sense to me, but then he asked me to participate in a stretcher drill. I would lie on a stretcher while Barry Binder and Scott Pelley carried me up the gangway to the ship.
I couldn’t practice my own death, especially if I was going to do a test swim immediately afterward. All of my thoughts about the swim had been focused on success. I had looked at George Butler’s films on Shackleton and used them as scouting reports. I had imagined myself swimming in Antarctic waters, past icebergs, and onto the shore. I had imagined success, not death.
This talk about death was something I balked against. I felt I would be okay if I paid attention the whole time, listened to my body, and had the courage to stop swimming if necessary, even if it meant I’d only be in the water a short amount of time. That would be the difficult part, but I knew I’d have to do it; otherwise I couldn’t make the attempt.
The day after my crew’s logistics meeting, we planned to do a test swim if the weather cooperated. I was eager to find out how far I could swim in the cold. More than that, I just wondered what it would be like to swim Antarctic waters.
During this test swim, we would rehearse what we would do on the actual swim. The doctors would get water temperatures and stroke rate, Bob Griffith would get air temperature, and Martha would have the clothes and blankets on hand and would be watching for wildlife. Barry would be giving me directions, Gabriella would be watching my responses to the cold, and Dan, sitting on the pontoon in a dry suit, would be prepared to jump in and drag me toward the boat if need be. At the end of this test swim, while I was strong