FED: Rescued cameraman looking forward to coming home

AAP General News (Australia)
12-02-1998
FED: Rescued cameraman looking forward to coming home

By Bryan De Lacy

MELBOURNE, Dec 2 AAP - Rescued filmmaker Rory McGuinness is eager to return to the
Australian sunshine after being trapped for six weeks on a frozen Siberian island, but red
tape may delay his homecoming.

Mr McGuinness, who was rescued from Wrangel Island yesterday, hoped visa problems would not
delay his flight out of the territory.

"My visa expired quite some time ago and I have to get it renewed before I get on this
aeroplane," he said before leaving his hotel for the local airstrip in Pevek today.

"Knowing the local bureaucracy, I suspect it might take a little bit of time."

Mr McGuinness and two colleagues were rescued by helicopter from the island where they were
making a documentary about polar bears and other wildlife.

Ferocious winter weather came sooner than they had expected, trapping them for six weeks in
a tiny hut 125 km from the island settlement of 30 people.

Several attempts by the Russians to get them out failed because of the conditions until a
helicopter sent by international medical emergency company AEA International SOS, finally got
through yesterday.

"Had we been there another week or two things wouldve changed dramatically because we
would have literally run out of food," Mr McGuinness told Melbourne Radio station 3AW.

The filmmakers had power from a generator for some warmth and Mr McGuinness was able to use
a satellite phone to regularly contact his partner Rebecca Scott and his family at his home in
Smoko near Bright in north-eastern Victoria.

"It was wonderful to be able to speak to them," he said.

"I endeavoured to reassure my family that things werent so bad but of course people were
worried."

Ms Scott, who spoke to Mr McGuinness early today, told AAP her partner was looking forward
to getting home and was surprised to learn the story had attracted international attention.

"Hes looking forward to coming home but is worried about the media attention," Ms Scott
said.

"He just wants to be able to relax."

Ms Scott said Mr McGuinness and his companions had considered shooting a polar bear for
food if things got desperate.

"That wouldnt be such a good story, would it," she said.

Mr McGuinness companions were Tatsuhiko Kobayashi, a producer with Japan's largest state
television network, NHK, and Russian scientist Nikita Ovsyannikov.

They went to the island across the Chukotka Sea, about an hours flight from Pevek, on
September 2 and had planned to leave on October 15 before they were trapped.

"It was a question of being extremely patient for a very long time and finding ways of
occupying ourselves ... it was just a case of sitting it out," Mr McGuinness said.

The three were sceptical when they heard yesterday that the helicopter was coming for them.

"We didnt believe it until we saw it actually in the sky, because wed had so many stories
over the last six weeks that helicopters were coming and going, and thinking about leaving,
and left yesterday, and leaving tomorrow, and so on," he said.

"I was waiting for the actual metal object on the tundra before I believed it was really
going to be this time."

Their rescuer was, he said, "an ugly Russian pilot".

No, they did not kiss their pilot, but he got "a pretty big thank you".

It was bitterly cold and dark outside his hotel as Mr McGuinness prepared to leave Pevek on
a flight to Moscow on the way home.

"Its nearly minus 30 (degrees Celsius) outside and even though its a quarter to nine in
the morning its still pitch black and the stars are out," he said.

When told that Melbourne was expecting 32 degrees today he said: "Yeah, Im looking forward
to getting back to those balmy summer Australian days."

AAP bdl/cmc/ba/jlw/sk

KEYWORD: RUSSIA TRAPPED NIGHTLEAD

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