FTV: Deep Down Dark – Part 2
We left Part 1 of this story just as the surface rescue teams finally penetrated the lowest levels of the San Jose Mine. At this point, they had no idea if there were any survivors from the cataclysmic collapse that occurred on August 5, 2010.
It was day seventeen before the drill rig labeled 10B broke into the passageway above the Refuge (a common room most of the 33 trapped miners had used as their home base since the mine imploded). The miners had already considered what to do if and when this happened. For many days they could hear sounds from nine different drilling operations working to breach the mine. Most missed their mark but the 10B bit kept getting closer and then broke through. The miners set about cleaning the end of the drill shaft so they could spray it with red paint. There had to be some way to let the surface know they were still alive. They used a large metal wrench to bang on the end of the 115 segments of the drill bit hoping the sound would travel the 2,100 feet to the surface. They also attached some rubber tubing with a few notes inside hoping they would survive the wet muddy conditions when the drill bit was pulled out of the bore hole.
At first, the drill rig operators were not sure if they just heard sounds from the mountain shifting, but the persistent efforts by the miners were too hard to ignore. When the rig was pulled back, the first thing they noticed was the red paint, then the notes that had survived the trip to the surface. The one that elicited a celebration simply said, “Estamos bien en el refugio. Los 33 (We are all well in the Refuge. The 33).” A camera and microphone were lowered into the chamber and while the surface could see the 33 in the dimly lit cavern, the microphone would not work. Next they lowered a jury-rigged phone that allowed the first audible contact. The 33’s spirits were lifted when the Minister of Mining told them how the entire country had been following their story and praying for them. He assured them there would soon be another, larger bore hole open (which opened only a few meters from the first).
With better communications established, the surface team took action to address the miner’s health. After days of starvation rations, simply sending down ‘real food’ would have actually killed some of the weaker men (a sad lesson that had been learned when the Nazi concentration camps were liberated during World War II). With instructions from the medical team on the surface, the men were sent a gel-like drink containing nutrients their bodies would need to digest normal food. One of the miners who had a minimal knowledge of how to administer injections was charged with taking blood samples to assess their health. The 33 were also sent an abundant supply of fresh water as many were in the early stages of kidney failure. Consultations with the United States space program medical people at NASA were initiated. A planned routine set up by the Chilean Health service was key to bringing them back to a healthier physical state without further damaging their already compromised bodies.
As the 33 regained their physical strength, the surface team was also interested in their mental state. They were asked to fill out a questionnaire that would supply the government with their height, weight, age, and other personal data plus their R.U.T. (essentially their national identity number). As miner Juan Illanes observed, “They had to make sure it was really us down there – without an R.U.T., you don’t exist in Chile.” The R.U.T. would also help the government supply aid to the miner’s families. The form asked ‘who was in charge’ to which most answered ‘Luis Urzua’ (the shift boss). Urzua had initially stepped back and suggested they all needed to make decisions during the early days of their imprisonment, but with the wheels of rescue now in motion, he again assumed more of a leadership role. Luis was deeply hurt when some of his fellow captives later blamed him for not closing the mine when the cracks in the Ramp first appeared, but most recognized it was a company decision, not Urzua’s.
A call with the President caused a bit of a stir. When he was asked, ‘How soon will we be rescued?’, he said, “You won’t be out before September 18 (a national day of festivities celebrated each year). But God willing, we’ll have you out by Christmas.” The thought of four more months trapped below ground sent several of the men into a deep depression. The miners thought that many more months of heat, humidity and stress (the mountain was still settling around them) might be enough to kill a few of the weaker men. It took Mario Sepulveda to shake them out of this line of negative thinking. Mario said, “You think I don’t want to get out of here, too? If I could, I’d grab onto the next thing that comes down that hole and pull myself through it. But I can’t, because I’m too big. No, the only alternative is to wait.”
Specialized drill rigs were brought into the area as well as the expert drillers needed to operate them. The plan was to drill a 15 inch bore hole into the cavern now that they had better coordinates to follow thanks to Luis Arzua’s hand drawn schematics sent to the surface. This hole would then be expanded to 28 inches, large enough to allow a rescue capsule dubbed ‘The Phoenix’ to be lowered into the chamber. It would be a ‘one man at a time’ ride to the surface if the larger bore hole could be completed. The team of Americans from Center Rock, Inc. and Driller Supply were having the greatest success but when they reached 860 feet (262 meters), a basketball-sized chunk of their drill bit broke off and blocked the hole. Starting over would probably have left the 33 underground until Christmas but in a small miracle, they were able to snag the piece out and continue this bore hole.
The day they were able to clear the hole coincided with the arrival of The Virgin Mary. Pope Benedict XVI blessed the statue he commissioned Ecuadorian artist Ricardo Villalba to carve from wood. Some feel that the presence of the Virgen del Carmen, the patron saint of Chile and the spiritual guide to the soldiers who fought in the War of Independence against Spain, had something to do with the drill team recovering the broken drill bit that was blocking their way. The statue was meant for the country’s bicentennial. It was on tour of northern Chile when it was carried onto the mine property inside a glass case. The Catholic miners below felt the Virgin had interceded on their behalf when the bore hole had been cleared of the 26 pound drill bit.
The American team was led by Jeff Hart who had been summoned from Afghanistan where he had been supervising a project drilling water wells. When the Chilean Minister of Mines paid a visit to the mine, he asked Hart why he kept one foot on the drill rig when it was working. Hart explained that it helps him ‘feel’ the drill. The diorite they were drilling through was harder than they first anticipated. To prevent clogging the hole with a broken bit again, they had to monitor it closely. The team found they needed to change the drill bits out every 10 to 20 meters they drilled. To speed the process, they allowed drill water and pulverized rock to simply flow down through the 15 inch bore they were following. The trapped miners below were more than happy to assist by making sure this material was moved away from the site.
An impatient group of four miners drove up to Level 190 intent on finding a passage through the safety tunnels (called ‘chimneys’) to the surface. After squeezing through a small opening at the top of one chimney, Florencio Avalos found a chasm so wide his miner’s light could not find the opposite side. They returned to the refuge to report the news and were sternly lectured from the surface rescue team for their efforts: “Do not try that again. It is just too unstable and too dangerous.” The four who made the attempt had to agree.
While the bore hole was being driven downward, the Chilean Navy began constructing the capsule that would bring the men to the surface one at a time. It was based on a design used previously in Europe with engineering help from NASA. NASA dubbed it the ‘EV’ (Escape Vehicle) and it contained a harness to hold the miner in place, oxygen, communications equipment, and sets of retractable wheels. The wheels would make the EV’s trip through the bore hole smoother and allow the rescue team to retract them should they jam on loose rock or irregularities in the escape bore hole. After a few short test runs of the ‘Fenix’ (Phoenix), it was time to send one man down before the others would start coming up.
Manuel Gonzales was picked from a small group of rescuers to be the inside man. He began his 30 minute descent at 11:17 p.m. on October 12 knowing that if there was a serious malfunction, he would not survive the trip down (the equivalent of a 130 story building). The crane being used to lower and raise the Fenix was rated at 54 tons, some 100 times the weight of the capsule. When he reached the cavern at Level 135, Yonni Barrios opened the pod and embraced Gonzales who told the rest, “There’s a (expletive deleted) of people up there waiting for you guys. You guys better not take advantage of me! Because there are two navy special-ops divers coming down after me and they’re really good at fighting!”
He continued, “I’m Manuel Gonzalez, a rescuer from El Teniente mine.” He goes on to describe what they will experience on the way out of the mine: “Look, you’re going to feel a little swaying, don’t be afraid of it . . . The change in pressure will be noticable.” He checked the first passenger’s blood pressure and found it a little high, but told Florencio Avalos, “Ah, it doesn’t matter. This is all for legal purposes anyway.” He runs down his checklist, straps Avalos in and before he departs, Florencio tells his fellow miners, “We’ll see each other up on top.” As he begins the ascent, he shouts back, “It feels good in here!” At the surface, he is met by his wife and son.
Gonzales noted later the men he met down there looked primitive with rolled up shorts that looked like diapers and cut up boots. In the twenty four hours he would be in the mine, he also noted the primitive nature of the mine itself: “They were completely without protection.” With no respirators or safety glasses and working in high heat and humidity, he thought the men’s working conditions were ‘inhuman’. Though Gonzales would be the last to leave, Luis Urzua, the boss of the A Shift is the last miner out. Just as he had done his job to go to the deepest level of the mine to make sure all the miners were accounted for, he would be the last to leave knowing there would be no one left behind. Luis tells the president, “As the jefe, I hand over the shift to you,” when he exits the mine for the final time.
After capturing the world’s attention for 69 days, the 33 would each have to find their way in dealing with the aftermath. They were scheduled to meet regularly with psychologists, but most found the sessions did not help them. Invitations to visit places like Disneyland poured in and most of them took the opportunity to bask in the public adulation their captivity had ignited. It did not take long for many of them to begin to feel odd about their celebrity – they told everyone they were not ‘heroes’ but the curious public and press became suffocating. A famous Chilean celebrity had promised each miner a large cash sum and promised he would lead a fundraising campaign that would make them rich enough that they would not need to work again. This promise went unfulfilled as many assumed the book and movie deals that were sure to come would make them rich enough on their own.
The one thing that may have harmed their recovery was the agreement they made that none of them could talk about the 17 days they spent between the accident and the discovery that they were still alive. Thinking “all should profit equally” from this part of their ordeal was logical, but it also meant they kept a lot of emotional issues bottled up. Depression and in some cases substance abuse issues surfaced for some of them. The group meetings they occasionally had to work out the details of getting their story out were mostly cordial, but some resentment and ‘smack talk’ behind the scenes developed.
The Chilean government eventually granted the oldest miners a retirement pension. The younger men were also offered a pension, but they turned it down. It would not have been enough for them to support their families. A few of the younger men were able to secure above ound jobs at other mines but this required them to move to other sites where the national mining company, Codelco, had operations. A few even found it within themselves to work underground again. As one of the men later said, “The worst thing to do in overcoming what had happened to them was to sit idle.” Ariel Ticona was one who returned underground and described the experience: “The first day, I felt a little strange, I wasn’t scared. I don’t know, I just didn’t want to be there. The second day, I got scared. I’d hear the machines drilling, and it reminded me of when they were looking for us. By the fourth day, I was starting to like it.” Ariel is one who had come full circle and was again risking his life to support a comfortable life for his family.
Author Hector Tobar asked former jefe Luis Urzua it it seemed to be, “an especially cruel twist of fate: to have one mine fall on top of you, and then to find yourself obliged to work under reound in a second mine.” Urzua told him, “That’s the life of a miner.” The author also spent time with Alex Vega and his family after all was said and done. During this gathering, the family sang a song declaring Alex would soon be freed from his underground prison. They sang it at the encampment outside the mine the night before the miners were discovered alive. Vega (nicknamed ‘El Pato’) was amused to hear them sing it again – ‘And El Pato will return – he will return!” Alex looked at all of them smiling at him when they finished the song and said, “And here I am.”
Top Piece Video: Okay, now that they are safe, we can take a lighter look at working in a (coal) mine: