Injured Seabee To Fly Home On Friday

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30498, 21 July 1964, Page 5

Injured Seabee To Fly Home On Friday

The injured Seabee, Bethel Lee McMullen, is in high spirits, in spite of his broken spine. On Friday he will leave Christchurch Hospital, where he has been since his rescue from the Antarctic on June 27, and will fly back to the United States. Mr McMullen will be aboard the United States Navy’s Super Constellation aircraft when it leaves Harewood for the United States on Friday. He is to be transferred to a Navy hospital in California.

Port of entry to the United States will be San Francisco, and the Navy is arranging for Mr McMullen’s wife and four children to meet him there. They live at Port Huemene on the Pacific coast about 400 miles south of San Francisco.

Mr McMullen was on duty as the fire chief at McMurdo station on June 20 when he fell 16ft from one floor of the fire house to another and broke his spine. Critically ill, he was rescued by a Hercules aircraft sent out from the United States for the mid-winter mercy flight. He was brought back to Qhristchurch on June 27 after a flight which went off

smoothly in practically every detail. Commander W. H. Withrow, Christchurch base commander for the American Antarctic operation, said yesterday that Mr McMullen seemed considerably improved when he saw him. That was the doctors’ opinion too, and they decided he could make the trip home. “His spirits really went high,” said Commander Withrow. “The aircraft’s pilots saw him this morning, and he’s in good spirit now.”