Brighten Your Day

Surgeon Walks 3 Hours In The Snow To Perform Surgery On Cancer Patient

March 16, 2018

A heavy snowstorm that brought much of Scotland to a standstill last week was not enough to stop a "superwoman" surgeon from doing her job.

Lindsey Chisholm / Credit: BBC

After waking at her snow-covered home in Glasgow, Lindsey Chisholm realized she couldn't drive to her hospital eight miles away where she was scheduled to operate on a colon cancer patient.

So, Chisholm put on her winter gear and trekked through the snow for nearly three hours.

"I got up early on Thursday morning, saw there was quite a lot of snow but it didn't look impossible," Chisholm told BBC.

Lindsey Chisholm / Credit: BBC

When she finally arrived at the hospital, two colleagues took one look at her dressed in a her winter gear with goggles and snow poles and started laughing.

"I had the right equipment, I knew there was no avalanche risk, I was not going to get lost, there were places I could stop on the way if the weather did become absolutely terrible so I just didn't think anything of it," she said.

Cancer patient Iain McAndrew told BBC Scotland he was "gobsmacked" when he saw the surgeon arrive still wearing her winter walking gear.

"When she walked in my heart took a wee jump. I thought it was amazing. If there is a real-life superwoman she is it," McAndrew said.

"She told me my operation would be on, which made me a very happy chappy. It felt like a Christmas Day because she came in with all her winter stuff on and she told me she had walked in from her home. I couldn't believe she'd walked nearly eight miles to do surgery on me."