HAB, THIS IS EVA, EMERGENCY, OVER.....

This was not a message that I wanted to hear, but Mars will be a dangerous place, and working in our Mars Analogue environment is not without its dangers either!

The day started out normally - for a day at MDRS. Up at 07:30, morning meeting at 09:00, then Engineering and EVA planning followed by ATV towing practice which turned out to be strangely prophetic.

Then at noon the EVA team pulled away from the hab for the geological EVA to the Barsoom outcrops to the North East of the hab.

At 14:27 I was on my own in the wardroom monitoring the HAB radio waiting for the EVA half hourly check in, when I received the fateful message. Countless grim scenarios ran through my mind as I asked the crucial question - Is Anybody Hurt?

Thankfully the answer was in the negative, so I breathed a sigh of relief and proceeded to battle the broken communications to ascertain the nature of the difficulty.

It turned out that the EVA was in the process of returning to the hab when an ATV had climbed a steep part of the track with a little too much speed and overshot into a steep ditch behind the ascent.

The crewman riding the ATV was thrown forward, damaging his helmet in an impact with the opposite bank of the ditch, leaving the ATV almost standing on its nose.

By the time I received the distress call, the other EVA members had helped the stricken rider from the vehicle and ascertained that he appeared to have suffered no serious injury. However the ATV was in a position from which they were unable to recover it.

By this time the other two crewman who were back at the hab with me had heard the conversation on their radios and come straight to the ward room. We gathered all the equipment that we thought we would need, loaded up the pressurized rover and then leaving one crewman at the hab to monitor communications, headed out to meet the stricken EVA team.

Fortunately the EVA had followed established roads that allowed the pressurized rover to travel all the way to the scene. We found that the EVA team had managed to reposition the ATV onto its wheels, but it was still wedged into the bottom of the gully, unable to move.

The team had sensibly broken sim at the time of the accident, fearing that there may have been serious injury. I directed that the ATV recovery would be performed out of sim for safety, and the recovery team proceeded to dig out the sides of the gully till we had enough clearance for me to drive the ATV backwards to a position from which it could be walked up the bank.

With an immense sense of relief, the pressurized rover and ATVs drove back to the hab in convoy. We are now all safe and well back in the hab, with battered crewman being monitored closely by the flight surgeon. After the harrowing events of the day, I have directed the crew to have a night off from their reporting duties. Consequently there will be fewer than normal reports tonight.