In The Kingdom of Ice

So earlier this year I lived and almost died on a small sheet of ice floating on top of the Beaufort Sea, about 200 miles north of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Almost dying might be a bit of an exaggeration, compared to how most people almost die. But, it was about the closest I've ever gotten.

I had been living on this sheet of ice for over a week, helping the Navy carry out a pretty impressive exercise. It was almost circus like - submarines silently poking around underneath us, paratroopers jumping in and joining the camp, drones buzzing overhead, divers slipping under the ice, it was quite the photo op. In fact, after a week, it just felt like one big continuous photo op. Big wigs would fly in for the day, get real chilly with the -40 wind chill, watch a submarine punch through the ice, take a dump in an unheated outhouse, and then hop on the last flight out. At one point, I remember looking over at the Canadian Chief of Naval Operations just dumping photo after photo onto his Facebook feed. Myself and a couple other Ice Camp Sargo residents kind of winced as we watched our very pricey data plan shrink by a couple gigabytes.

So one morning I was woken up by an old-timer named Randy. I had only been asleep for a couple hours; I had been up all night watching the range, which is essentially a computer screen I used to make sure the submarines weren't going to run into each other. He wanted my help doing some field work. We were going to go out by the runway and drill some holes in the ice for a test we were going to do later that day. I agreed to go and started getting dressed.

Getting dressed for field work is a pain in the ass. I already had my base layer on, because you have to sleep with clothes on all the time to keep from getting too cold in the hut you sleep on. The base layer I was wearing was, well, pretty ripe because there is no way to bathe on the polar ice cap. Anyway, I put on another layer of clothes, a mid layer of looser fitting clothes that would help create little hot air pockets between my body and the clothes. I then put on the outer layer. A set of overalls. One set of socks. Foot warmers taped onto the socks. And then another set of socks. Put on these monstrous boots that make it next to impossible for my feet to get wet. Then I put on a set of gloves. Next, this gigantic parka that retails for about $700. I put a hand warmer in each hand and shoved my hand into the outer gloves. I then put on a beanie. I put on a set of goggles so my eyes wouldn't freeze over. I was finally ready to go.

I waddled out and met Randy by the command hut. I grabbed an auger and noticed there were some cameramen milling about the snowmobile we were going to ride out to the site.

“Who are those dudes?” I asked.

“They're from 60 Minutes. Leslie Stahl is coming out here today and they're shooting background for some piece she is doing. They want to film us drill a hole in the ice.”

“Far out.”

I sat on a sled attached to the snowmobile and get carted out to the site where we are going to drill. The film crew takes a moment to set up and then we get started. I had a real motherfucker of a time getting the auger started, but I finally got it going. Once it got going, Randy and I held it while we tried to drill a hole in the ice. As we were drilling, my hands got really, really cold. Like, no feeling in my hands cold. I was kind of winded from jerking on the auger to get it started, and as we wrestled with the auger trying to drill the hole I just got more winded.

We tried for about 3 to 4 minutes but the auger wasn't catching in the ice. We stopped and Randy started cursing and started radioing back to camp to inquire about a different drill bit. I started looking around and realized that I couldn't really see that well and that I felt really, really hot (except for my hands). My vision had this peanut butter Instagram filter covering everything.

I waddle over to Randy and say, “Randy, I think I need to head back. I'm not feeling well.”

Randy looks over at me and says, “Why don't you sit down for a minute?”

“Yeah, that'd be nice,” I slurred.

I took a knee and that's about all I remember for about a minute. The next thing I remember I'm looking up at the sky and Randy is talking into the radio. There's a camera in my face and one of the producers is shaking me.

“I'm okay, I'm okay,” I say. I wasn't okay. But I was conscious, and that seemed like an improvement.

I crawled back over to the sled and flopped onto it, staring back at the sky. Randy started carting me back to the camp.

Here's a weird thing I remember during those few minutes it took to get me back to camp: I felt like I could hear everything that was going on in my body. I didn't just hear my breath, I could hear it rasping in and out of my lungs. My heartbeat was a thump, sounding every couple seconds.

The sky was very vivid. There wasn't even a hint of a cloud in the sky. It felt like staring into a neon colored abyss.

“Am I dying?” I wondered to myself. Men in my family have a background of having bum tickers, and based on what mine sounded like, I thought maybe that was the case with my heart. “Nah, I'm not dying. But I'm seriously fucked up right now.”

We get back to the camp and the Doc is there to greet me. People help lift me off the cart and I go into his tent.

“What happened to you out there, James?”

“Fuck, I'm not sure. I think I blacked out. I've got to get all this shit off of me.”

I start ripping off all of my layers until I'm back down to my mid layer. “Yeah, maybe I blacked out. I don't know. Hey! Does anybody know if I blacked out?”

One of the cameramen had followed me back to camp and affirmed that I had, indeed, taken a little snooze out on the ice for a few seconds.

“Well, there it is, Doc,” I said, making a dramatic revealing gesture with my hands.

Doc was digging through his instruments and got a blood pressure cuff on me. As the cuff clamped down, he asked how I felt.

“Uh…I can't see very well. Things are kind of washed out right now. Kind of having trouble talking. And I'm very thirsty.”

A cup of water appeared. I drank it all. I knew I needed water.

My blood pressure came back at 80/40. “Hey, that seems pretty low.”

“It's very low. Let's retake it.”

As the blood pressure cuff tightened a second time, the Public Affairs Officer came in. PAOs are like the mouthpiece of the Navy. It's easy not to respect them.

“Hey, 60 Minutes would love to get some footage of the Doc taking care of you, is it alright if I let them come in here and set up and film this?”

Doc was busy sweeping off a table because I think he thought shit was about to get real.

So I said, “No. Absolutely fucking not. My heart is beating 30 beats a minute and I have no blood pressure. I'd like to see how this turns out before someone films my death for 60 minutes.”

“Ok, just asking!”

My blood pressure came back 85/45. Doc said, “Well, that's an improvement.”

“You can thank the PAO for getting my blood pressure up.”

A pitcher of water appeared. I drank it all. I asked for some food. That showed up as well.

Doc was kind of pacing. He was more nervous than I was.

“James, I think we need to fly you off back to Prudhoe Bay.”

“Okay, if you think it'd be best.”

“I do.”

As I sat there trying to eat a burrito I started catching some very strong feelings. “Stupid. Just stupid, stupid, stupid,” I kept thinking over and over. I knew I hadn't rested enough, hadn't eaten enough, hadn't drank enough water. Just stupid.

And now I was sitting here dying in a fucking canvas tent, a thousand miles from my wife and baby boy. Although the nature of my work has made me contemplate the universe without me in it on several occasions, I just didn't think it would happen here. A fire that consumes the ship, a collision at sea that sends me to the bottom, losing a war. All that I'd thought about. But not because I should've drank a couple more glasses of water.

I thought about my boy and all the things I'd miss. I thought about my wife raising him alone. I thought about how I didn't have a will. I thought about the family back home I never talk to. Stupid. Just stupid. At that moment, slumped over and struggling to stay upright and not pass out, I just really fucking hated I had to share my body with myself.

Eventually my strength came back. Blood pressure came back to normal. Doc stopped fidgeting, and eventually we stopped talking about flying me off the camp that day. I relaxed the rest of the day. Apologized profusely to Randy and everyone else that would listen. I received a lot of kindness from people concerned about my health, which I was embarrassed to receive.

The next day I flew off the camp on schedule. I spent a couple weeks back home and then flew to Groton to do the Submarine Command Course.

As I sit here finishing out the course, after slugging through weeks of exhaustion and war games, I'm kind of wondering if I missed the message. The tap on the chin I received up there, staring listlessly at the sky picturing what would happen to my family if I disappeared.

And tonight, there is a quiet little voice in my head whispering, “Stupid. Stupid. Just stupid, stupid, stupid.”