Woman Minutes From Frostbite in the South Pole As She Wears Shorts and Top in -85F

A woman has revealed that she was minutes from frostbite after standing outside in the South Pole with the temperature at -85 Fahrenheit … wearing just shorts and a tank top.

Toni lives and works at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole research station in Antarctica. She documents her everyday life on her TikTok account @antwuhnet.

Her latest video, posted on Wednesday, shows Toni dressed in a black strappy top and shorts—although she is wearing a hat and a pair of sturdy shoes.

"Can you handle the cold," the on-screen caption reads, as she opens a metal door and steps out into the icy South Pole.

Her breath billows out in front of her, as the frozen tundra can be seen in the distance. Toni was responding to a question from a TikToker who had asked what would happen if she went outside in minimal clothing.

"So, this is possible, it just really sucks," Toni said, jumping up and down in the clip, which has been watched 2.8 million times.

"It is very cold. OK, I'm coming inside," she added.

Back inside, Toni said: "So it was negative 85 outside, and anything less than negative 70 Fahrenheit, and you get frostbite in less than five minutes. So you've got to get back inside."

The website of the U.K.'s National Health Service explains: "Frostbite is damage to skin and tissue caused by exposure to freezing temperatures—typically any temperature below -0.55C (31F)."

Mountaineers and hikers have had to have extremities amputated because frostbite has caused irreparable damage.

Toni's TikTok account—which has the tagline "I live at the bottom of the world"—offers an insight into how the research station runs, as well as the lives of its inhabitants. Her most popular video has been watched more than 33 million times and she has 1.5 million followers.

She works in the logistics and waste department, explaining that her job is to "take all of the waste that the South Pole creates, and box it all up to be sent out to the United States, because it can't stay on the continent."

In other clips, she shows the accommodation quarters at the base, penguins, the South Pole greenhouse and the crew waving goodbye to the last plane departing for six months.

She also captured the final sunset in March, as the sun disappears for half the year in Antartica. In her most recent clip, however, the sun has returned.

Toni added an on-screen caption to the clip, saying: "The sunrise after six months of darkness."

TikTokers were in awe over the footage of her stepping out into the cold in shorts, with Everett writing: "Girl that's just terrifying but that sunset wow."

ShauriNotSorry wrote: "It's like going into those therapy freezers."

Roza added: "[I don't know] how you managed. I once stepped outside in -37C and thought my eyeballs would freeze."

After one viewer asked what might have happened if she'd got locked outside, Toni explained: "None of our outside doors lock!"

Newsweek has reached out to Toni for further comment.