It was once the most dangerous place on Earth.

Granted, we wouldn't necessarily consider Antarctica a utopia today, but it isn't nearly

as deadly as it used to be.

Your chances of dying as you cruise through the Drake passage in the 21st century are significantly lower than they were 100 years before.

Back in the day, just about anything could have taken you out.

Hypothermia, starvation, scurvy. Heck, there are even

reports of explorers dying of cardiac arrest simply because they exerted themselves too much

in sub-zero temperatures. So, in a place where you could just as easily fall off a glacier

as freeze to death, it might be surprising to hear that one of the foremost explorers of the

1900s was nearly taken out by a stove.

In 1934, Admiral Richard E. Bird was manning a weather station in Antarctica, completely solo.

It was a seven-month assignment, and, unbeknownst to him, ice had been slowly building up inside

his stove pipes, blocking the ventilation. As a result, five months into his deployment,

he collapsed from carbon monoxide poisoning. Suddenly, he was in a fight for his life. For the next

two months, breathing was a struggle. In the process, his body became so weak that he

could barely crawl across the floor. Convinced he was dying, he wrote in his journal,

I'm afraid, it's the end. And then he left instructions for whoever discovered his body

to mail the farewell letters he had written for his family.

Thankfully, though, he made a full recovery, even going on to lead two more Antarctic expeditions.

But there's nothing more suffocating than knowing that you're in danger, but unable to

breathe, unable to move, because when you're paralyzed, you're helpless.

And that, my friends, is when the real nightmare takes over.

...