Planes, Trains and Automobiles: RSNA 2025 Travelers Brave Chicago's Historic Snowfall - Part 2

Changing Course to Keep Going

“We rented a big SUV, started driving at 1:30 p.m and we were going to drive until sunset, to allow for as much light as possible,” Dr. Bedoya said. “One of our residents who lives in Ann Arbor said that we could stay at her place if conditions became unsafe.”

Dr. Bedoya and her fellow passengers had four hours to go before they reached the U.S. border, and they speculated on how customs agents might receive a group of European and South American expatriates traveling from Toronto to the world’s largest medical meeting.

In Milwaukee, waiting at the luggage claim with their new GE associate companion, Drs. Dunnick and Roubidoux discovered they were missing a bag.

“They said it would arrive on the next flight,” Dr. Dunnick recalled. “I said, ‘I won’t be in Milwaukee by the time the next flight arrives—at least, I hope I won’t still be in Milwaukee.’ So, they said they’d try to reroute it to Chicago.”

The three travelers then took the shuttle to the Amtrak station. In the near-empty depot, Dr. Dunnick inspected the schedule display.

There was no 5:45 p.m. train.

“The next train was 7:45 p.m., and I did not want to spend over three hours in this tiny depot with only a couple of wooden bench seats,” Dr. Dunnick said. “The lady we were with said she needed to be at RSNA, and that she was going to take an Uber down.”

He added, “I asked her, ‘Think we can get a car big enough for the three of us?’”

Dreams Meet Obstacles

Third-year radiology resident Roberto Muñoz Estrada, MD, was excited for his first trip to the RSNA annual meeting—in fact, his first trip to the United States. “This journey began a year ago when I won a prize for an oral presentation at the Chilean Congress of Radiology,” Dr. Muñoz said. “The prize consisted of this trip to RSNA. I waited a full year for this, so expectations were very high.”

He set out in the late evening of Friday, Nov. 28, and was scheduled to land at 10:00 a.m. in Chicago.

Chicago was where his problems started. “We couldn’t descend due to the weather, and the pilot tried to reassure us by saying he had 45 minutes of extra fuel to allow us to wait in the air,” Dr. Muñoz recalled. “Well, exactly 45 minutes later the fuel ran out, and we had to descend rapidly to the nearest city: Indianapolis.”

Passengers waited three hours on the ground until it became clear that it wouldn’t be possible to fly to Chicago. “The only option the airline gave us was to return to Atlanta near midnight and, once in Atlanta, look for an available flight to Chicago,” Dr. Muñoz said. “But nothing was guaranteed. The flight attendants’ final response was, ‘Unfortunately, you are stuck in Indianapolis. I’m sorry, but we have to go to Virginia. I suggest you rent a car.’ And they left.”

Indianapolis is 185 miles away from McCormick Place in Chicago.

“That was my moment of greatest fear,” Dr. Muñoz said. “I was stuck in a city I didn’t know, and I didn’t know anyone there. I thought about the whole year I waited to attend RSNA 2025 and couldn’t believe my bad luck. I wasn’t willing to miss even a single day.”

Snowy Roads Challenge Travelers’ Grit

In Milwaukee, Dr. Dunnick’s group secured an Uber. It was a large-sized vehicle with a confident driver. “I was surprised an Uber driver even wanted to drive that day,” Dr. Dunnick remarked.

The group made decent time despite the intensifying flurries until they reached the Illinois state line.

“Then we all slowed down to about 30 or 35 mph, as we were following a phalanx of four snowplows, and they covered the entire freeway, Dr. Dunnick said. “The good news is that, following them, the roads were really quite clear. The only bad news is that we had to go the speed of the snowplows.”

Dr. Yousem, meanwhile, was white knuckling his solo trip from Cleveland.

“It wasn’t until Toledo that it started to snow,” he said.

From then on, it was pretty much 40 to 45 mph in poor visibility, with cars strewn on the median strip and off the road.

“I would say that all told, I saw about 15 cars that had skidded—not in car-to-car accidents, but just off the road in the ditch—and five jackknifed tractor-trailers that were off the road as well, one of which was overturned.”

Unexpected Bonds, New Experiences

The snow was still only moderate at the Canada/U.S. border when Dr. Bedoya’s group pulled up at the customs station. “The officer was really nice,” she said. “We said, ‘We are doctors. We missed our flight, and we’re driving to Chicago—if that is even possible. The customs officer laughed, and she let us in.”

Despite her colleague’s offer to stay in Ann Arbor, Dr. Bedoya’s group decided to push through the night, stopping only once for food and fuel.

“Our team was sending us car games on WhatsApp—like, name 11 countries that start with an A,” she said. “And our fellow was the DJ, so we were playing music all the time.”

Waiting more than an hour for his suitcase at the baggage claim in Indianapolis, Dr. Muñoz felt devastated. Most of his companions from the original flight had left the airport, and he was apprehensive about making new travel plans in a strange country.

“There, while waiting, I found a group of Chileans,” he said. “We were all strangers to each other, but the situation brought us together. Since no one was willing to drive in the storm, we ordered an Uber around 4:00 p.m.”

“Our driver was a very kind man originally from Thailand,” Dr. Muñoz said. “He didn’t speak Spanish; his English wasn’t very fluent, and he had a bad internet signal. So, we had to guide him ourselves with our cell phones at various moments throughout the trip.”

“The funny—or not so funny—fact is that he had never driven on a highway in snow before and didn’t realize we were going all the way to Chicago until we were already on the road,” Dr. Muñoz added.

The drive was estimated to take three hours, not accounting for the additional weather delays or traffic that could add to the time.

Dr. Muñoz described his experience riding in snow as “shocking.” The low visibility, feeling the tires slide on the ice and seeing other cars stalled along the way was something he’d never encountered in Santiago.

Flight Delays Test Travelers’ Resolve

In Toronto, Dr. Hanneman’s “backup” flight would eventually end the same as Dr. Dunnick’s had.

It was delayed a couple of hours, optimistically boarded, patiently awaited from a packed cabin, and ultimately remained grounded for the day.

She booked another flight for the next morning, which would get her to RSNA 2025 late on opening day.

“Even though I’d never left the country, I still had to go through Canadian customs before I could leave the airport because I’d boarded the plane,” she laughed.

In a testament to their resilience and to the importance of the annual meeting, part three of our series recounts how the travelers overcame delays and hardship, finally reaching Chicago for RSNA 2025.

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