BBC Two’s On Thin Ice with laser eye surgery

patient Tess Burrows

If you have been watching the BBC Two programme ‘On Thin Ice’ on Sunday evenings at 9

o’clock, you would have witnessed the extreme conditions that five teams faced when they

prepared to start the inaugural Amundsen South Pole Race.

Fogle, Cracknell and Coates

were hoping to turn history on

its head and beat a Norwegian

team which was one of the

other five taking part. The five

part documentary details the

experiences of this team and

during the preparations for the

race also features the other

four teams taking part. Tess

Burrows, a highly experienced

and accomplished climber and

explorer and her team partner

Pete competed as one of the

other four teams (Team

Southern Lights) in this first race to the South Pole for over 100 years.

Tess was used to

extremes in weather but

at time the temperature

dropped as low as -58F (-

50C). Her experience of

many other expeditions

had taught her that

wearing contact lenses

or glasses wasn’t a

realistic option.

Tess had found the use

of glasses and contact

lenses during expeditions

not just inconvenient but

life threatening! Freezing breath on glasses or contact lenses with grit behind them had left

Tess in precarious situations too many times.

Tess decided in September 2008 to investigate laser eye surgery as a means of overcoming

her visual impairments. Her research led her to trust her future vision to Accuvision Laser

Eye Clinic in Fulham, London.

Following an intensive and detailed assessment of her eyes, the Accuvision team were able

to assure her that Accuwave laser eye surgery would give her the vision Tess was seeking.

Following treatment Tess was able to concentrate on her gruelling training schedule in

preparation for the South Pole Race.

On the 15th

December all the teams left the UK for South Africa for a two day stop over

before travelling on to the continent of Antarctica. A period of acclimatisation and training

followed before the race proper got under way on 4th

January 2009.

You can read about Tess’s extraordinary adventure at www.teamsouthernlights.org and you

will be pleased to know that her knowledge and experience of extreme conditions meant

that she and her partner Pete did not suffer as much as Ben Fogle and James Cracknell in

their attempts to reach the South Pole first!