BBC Two’s On Thin Ice with laser eye surgery patient Tess Burrows

If you have been watching the BBC Two programme ‘On Thin Ice’ on Sunday evenings at 9 o’clock, you would have witnessed the extreme conditions that five teams faced when they prepared to start the inaugural Amundsen Omega 3 South Pole Race .

Fogle, Cracknell and Coates were hoping to turn history on its head and beat a Norwegian team which was one of the other five taking part. The five part documentary details the experiences of this team and during the preparations for the race also features the other four teams taking part. Tess Burrows, a highly experienced and accomplished climber and explorer and her team partner Pete competed as one of the other four teams (Team Southern Lights) in this first race to the South Pole for over 100 years.

Tess was used to extremes in weather but at time the temperature dropped as low as -58F (- 50C). Her experience of many other expeditions had taught her that wearing contact lenses or glasses wasn’t a realistic option.

Tess had found the use of glasses and contact lenses during expeditions not just inconvenient but life threatening! Freezing breath on glasses or contact lenses with grit behind them had left Tess in precarious situations too many times.

Tess decided in September 2008 to investigate laser eye surgery as a means of overcoming her visual impairments. Her research led her to www.accuvision.co.uk where Tess decided she could trust her future vision to the Accuvision Laser Eye Clinic in Fulham, .

Following an intensive and detailed assessment of her eyes, the Accuvision team were able to assure her that Accuwave laser eye surgery would give her the vision Tess was seeking.

Following treatment Tess was able to concentrate on her gruelling training schedule in preparation for the South Pole Race.

On the 15 th December all the teams left the UK for South Africa for a two day stop over before travelling on to the continent of Antarctica. A period of acclimatisation and training followed before the race proper got under way on 4 th January 2009.

You can read about Tess’s extraordinary adventure at www.teamsouthernlights.org and you will be pleased to know that her knowledge and experience of extreme conditions meant that she and her partner Pete did not suffer as much as Ben Fogle and in their attempts to reach the South Pole first!

For more information just go to www.accuvision.co.uk/contact.html