…with their families, and such as they may need to get caught up on the world.
If this had been done as a NASA mission, they’d have studied and selected, and studied some more.
There were not so many ‘selection criteria’ on these guys, except they were all male, all Chilean (except 1 guy from Bolivia), all in fair condition—enough to be employed, but not without some medical issues. And they were very lucky to have an Elvis fan, a guy with paramedic training, and some strong-minded people who were not fatalists. If you haven’t been up on the Chilean miner deal—they spent over a week without them knowing what was going on and with the world thinking they were dead; then they turned up alive, and the world beat a path to their doorstep—so far down they had some real technical challenges getting to them.
NASA had some helpful experience to offer, but I think they’ll want to talk to these people, no question; a previous mine rescue (I think in PA) had some technology to offer—and in general these guys are very, very lucky.
SF conventions have proven again and again how much expertise you can find if you put a bunch of people in a hotel for the weekend: should civilization go down, we could probably rebuild it. And we’d have a library.
But an Elvis fan? he became the de facto morale officer. The medic got far more experience than he’d ever had. And the average guys just hung on and kept hoping, which also saved everybody’s bacon. There were some negative moments, high tensions; but y’know, the average guys just hung on and kept the peace, and it all worked.
A nice moment for the world.
Hopefully they only have good experiences going forward. It will probably depend on each person.
I think I am amazed the most with those first days when they had no contact with topside, dwindling food, and even later when they were being searched for they could tell all the drills were missing their pocket of air and might stop looking. The logical way their leader split them up into three groups, gave them shifts with work that had to be completed, and rationed their food a crazy amount (though it turned out to only be two days off) is brilliant.
I am a little preoccupied with thinking about all that stuff they left down there. Probably OCD for me to dwell on the fact the last guy left the light on.
I heard they were bringing up rocks as souvenirs. I’ll bet they got rather familiar with the limited terrain before all was said and done.
I hope they’re able to go on being strong. They’re going to need it. But y’know, they just may have it.
I watched it live (sleep, who needs sleep) and they were bringing out lots of souvenirs for the rescue workers. It surprised everyone. Drill people got rocks, the guy who manned communications was handed the phone, gifts like that. I guess they had plenty of time to get creative.
It’s probably a bad sign for my mental health, but the first thing I thought when I heard about this two months ago was,” Miners, trapped and in the dark? On the upside, they don’t have a tumble they can’t correct.”
I’ve probably read the Ben Pollard stories a few too many times.
Wonderful to have a story that has everything positive about it.
Perhaps this will be a wake-up call all those places with not so good records.