Sick Engineer Evacuated From South Pole Had Stroke

An American engineer who was successfully evacuated from the South Pole to New Zealand says preliminary medical tests indicate she had a stroke.

Renee-Nicole Douceur told The Associated Press in an email Tuesday night that she's expected to recover, although not 100 percent.

Douceur landed in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Monday, two months after she began experiencing vision, language and memory problems while working at the National Science Foundation's South Pole research station.

The 58-year-old Seabrook, N.H., resident says the neurologist who reviewed her medical tests believes she had a stroke on the left side of her brain.

Douceur asked for an emergency evacuation in August, but officials rejected her request because of bad weather, saying that sending a rescue plane was too dangerous and her condition wasn't life-threatening.