9 Badasses Who Performed Surgery On Themselves

6. Tumour Biopsy - Dr Jerri Nielsen

A cancer diagnosis is terrible at the best of times, but when you are in one of the most inaccessible places on Earth during a winter of six months of permanent night, with zero medical support, things get infinitely worse.

Jerri Nielsen was serving as the emergency doctor on the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station on Antarctica back in 1998, when she found a lump in her breast. Due to the extreme isolation of the base, she had to perform her own biopsy whilst video conferencing with other doctors, and sent it off for tests. When the results come back, it was bad news.

So, still isolated in the middle of a frozen wasteland, Nielsen then self-administered her chemotherapy for several months before she was able to be removed from the base for surgery. She became a motivational speaker until she sadly lost her battle with the cancer in 2009, after it spread to her brain, liver, and bones.