DAY 68: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12
As the Phoenix descended, three separate video monitors were being scrutinized above ground. President Piñera and his wife, Cecilia, were surrounded by top aides who peered at the live feed from the bottom of the mine. When the capsule arrived, all the action would be broadcast to the world. Piñera had overruled aides who wanted the live coverage to be limited to long-distance panning shots that offered no sense of emotion or drama. Immediately understanding the worldwide interest and inherent drama in the entire operation, Piñera successfully argued that it was a moment for Chile to showcase its “know-how.” Not coincidentally, that was the same message that the fledgling president had sought to sell to the Chilean public as his strongest virtue. Not a politician known for emotional or tender connections to his public, Piñera’s strength and political capital were largely encapsulated by this entrepreneurial spirit of “let’s get it done.”
The second camera was manned by Otto, a serious yet genial Austrian who was in charge of lowering and raising the Phoenix via a 2,300-foot cable. Atop the platform of his truck-sized control center, Otto placed a laptop with a live feed from below. Here he could not only receive audio feeds from below but also watch as the Phoenix arrived. The grainy black-and-white image looked to Otto like a remote-control vehicle that was traveling to another planet.
The final video feed was manned by Pedro Gallo, the humble inventor who had catapulted from hapless telecom guy to the top ranks of the rescue operation and into the hearts of the miners. Few of the rescue team workers had logged as many hours as Gallo in daily conversations with the miners. As a working-class entrepreneur, he was able to understand their gripes, relay their concerns and assuage their secret desires. Though Gallo would later deny it, the miners swore that it was Gallo who stuffed chocolates and sweets into the paloma. Those symbolic acts of defiance as well as Gallo’s undisputed loyalty to the miners, and not the rescue hierarchy, had made him—in the eyes of the miners—a virtual saint.
Five rescue workers were now gathered, ready to head below. Two navy marines with extensive medical experience, two rescuers from Codelco and one member of GOPE, the Chilean police special operations unit that had bravely entered the mine during the dangerous first forty-eight hours after the collapse.
The Phoenix would arrive below through the roof of a workshop. When the mine was still functioning, the workshop had been a place to fix or store vehicles. During the men’s entrapment the workshop was considered an area too unstable for sleeping, so the miners rarely ventured the 415 yards from their main living quarters up the tunnels to the workshop site. Now this dangerous area was ground zero for the final and most important day of the entire ten-week nightmare, and the men moved their cots and clothing to the area next to the workshop.
Despite the anticipation and adrenaline, regular shifts were maintained. Someone had to man the paloma to receive last-minute supplies—including special clothing, sunglasses and fresh socks. While food delivery would be suspended at the very last moment, the rescuers were expected to spend a full day underground and the paloma would be used to send hot meals to keep them fed and alert. The paloma shifts had been set in stone weeks earlier, long before the exact rescue date was set. For this last paloma shift it was Franklin Lobos who drew duty. It was an assignment that would nearly cost him his life.
At 11:37 pm a rattling and clanging alerted the gathered men to the Phoenix’s approach. The red fins of the capsule descended from the roof as if in slow motion. As the capsule emerged bit by bit, it was like a visitor from another planet. The trapped miners were stunned. A dream come true. Yonni Barrios approached and peered inside at rescue specialist Manuel González. For the first time in sixty-nine days, another human had arrived.
The thirty-three watched in awe and respect as González unlatched the capsule’s door, stepped down and hugged Barrios. A horde of nearly naked miners then rushed to hug and greet him.
For one miner, Florencio Ávalos, freedom was just minutes away.
Ávalos was ready. He had slipped into the tailored green jumpsuit with his name stitched across the chest. A pair of Oakley sunglasses protected his eyes. On his right wrist a monitor measured his pulse and sent wireless updates to the rescue team on the surface. His left index finger was inserted into a device that measured oxygen levels in his blood. Tightly wrapped around his chest, a sophisticated electronic monitor transmitted another half dozen vital signs to the technicians and doctors above ground.
The other miners gathered around to watch, photograph and make home videos of the scene. Despite their nervousness, a strange calm filled the chamber. Like professional athletes in a locker room before a big game, the men joked and paced but their confidence was evident. The men momentarily forgot the terror of the collapse and the lingering sensation that death had been stalking them. For now, the scene was more like a party as cumbia music blared from farther down the mine. White balloons bounced around the floor as the men ambled excitedly—naked except for pairs of clean white pants.
The prospect of escape filled them with a dose of adrenaline. The men now felt like they were going to actually win their ten-week battle with the mountain. Along the length of the dark tunnels, the miners made last-minute explorations of the tunnels, the bright beams from their flashlights dancing in the distance. The clanking of carabiners was a reminder that rescue workers from Codelco, GOPE and the Chilean Navy had arrived.
González placed a white plastic credential—like those used backstage at rock concerts—over the neck of Ávalos. The rescue was filled with formality, orders and procedures. Every detail had been rehearsed for weeks. Yet the mountain could still throw a monkey wrench into protocol. Even the deepest calm at 2,300 feet was a superficial escape from the claustrophobic reality.
At 11:53 pm Ávalos stepped into the capsule, and the rescue workers latched the door shut. The miners all listened impatiently to the chatter between Otto, the Austrian winch operator, the communications center and Pedro Cortés, below. Meanwhile Ávalos nervously anticipated the imminent family reunion: the two sons who had not seen their father for two months; the wife who had been writing letters and watching videos but had not touched or looked into the eyes of her husband. Ávalos had left for work on a cold winter morning; now it was spring.
As the capsule slid upward, Ávalos’s compañeros screamed, cheered and whistled. Then, instantly, he was alone. For fifteen minutes, Ávalos peered through a metal mesh that sliced the world into diamond-shaped viewing holes. A light inside the capsule illuminated the smooth, wet rock walls. The spring-loaded metal wheels clanked as they rolled along the rocky path. The capsule dipped and bobbed as it followed the uneven tunnel and slowly brought Ávalos toward freedom.
When he was just 65 feet from the surface, Ávalos could see the first signs of light and hear the first sounds of life. Rescue workers were now screaming down, asking if he was okay. Then suddenly he was in the light: a hero to the waiting world, a father reunited with his crying sons and a huge boost in the polls to President Piñera, who waited in the front row.
As Florencio was pulled from the capsule, his nine-year-old son, Byron, broke down in tears. Rescue workers jumped and celebrated. The cameras flashed on a wrenching scene—for a moment the nine-year-old boy was alone, awash in emotions. First lady Cecilia Morel, health minister Mañalich and Rene Aguilar, the second in command of the rescue operation, swept in to calm the child. Then true comfort arrived—a hug from his father.
Ministers, hard hat rescue workers, doctors and journalists all openly wept at the beauty of the scene. The men had defined themselves from that first note as Los 33 and had been adopted by the world as a beloved collective, now famed for their ability to work as a team. In a world so often defined by bloody acts and individual egos, Los 33 remained united while entombed, a brotherhood of working-class heroes. Teamwork had kept them alive, and now they would all be rescued together.
Florencio hugged first his family, then President Piñera, then the rescue workers. Next he was placed on a stretcher and wheeled into the field hospital. The entire hospital staff erupted in applause. They assumed Ávalos was healthy—he had been chosen to journey first based on his mental and physical strength—but nonetheless he was given glucose and a nurse took his blood pressure. As he lay in the bed, Florencio thought about his younger brother Renán, still trapped below.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1 AM
As narrator, clown and undisputed leader of Los 33, Mario Sepúlveda had carried a constant burden on his shoulders for sixty-nine days. He had never failed to see the power of humor to guide the group—a court jester to the invisible kings and princes who sent orders from above. Yet Sepúlveda also had an instinctive ability, a native sense of group dynamics, knowing when it was necessary to use brute threats of physical violence. With the responsibilities of leadership lifted, he was about to bloom in the limelight.
Below ground, Sepúlveda had cracked a last few jokes before climbing into the capsule. Now, at 1:09 am, as the Phoenix neared the surface, he began a running commentary on his own rescue.
“Hey, old woman!” he yelled to Katty, his thirty-three-year-old wife. Through the mesh, Sepúlveda could be heard laughing. As raucous cheers went up, Sepúlveda sprang from the capsule and, without pausing to let rescue workers remove his harness and safety jacket, bounded over to President Piñera, dropped to one knee and began pulling gifts from his cherished homemade yellow satchel: a handful of white rocks, gleaming with the golden sparkle of pyrite. A rock for the president. A rock for the minister. The recipients laughed and clutched the stones. Sepúlveda hugged a stunned Piñera three times, and then flirted with his own wife, suggesting they would have sex for so long that neither would be able to walk. “Get the wheelchair ready,” he joked.
He danced over to hug Pedro Gallo, wrapping his arms tight and holding Gallo in deep appreciation for everything he had personally done to save the miners. Gallo wept. Sepúlveda led the crowd in a rousing cheer, a celebration of what a reporter at The Guardian called “a flash of global joy.”
At Camp Hope, the delirium was brief. While the family members celebrated the first two rescues, nothing could be truly enjoyed until all the men were out. The precarious cable that separated life and death was still visible to all.
As the Phoenix capsule dipped back down into the mine, Ávalos and Sepúlveda were transferred from the triage unit at the field hospital to a welcome lounge higher up the hill, near the helicopter pad. Decorated with modern white couches, flower arrangements and ultra cool blue lighting, the ambience was akin to a chic after-hours club. There was no sense or smell of medicine, sickness or trauma; instead the Chilean mental health specialists had designed a gracious main reception area and then a wide hallway that led to private spaces.
In the welcome lounge, Ávalos huddled with his two sons, his wife and President Piñera. Across the hall Sepúlveda was in a similar family mode: laughing, hugging and kissing. Then Piñera pulled Sepúlveda aside and asked him to do a brief interview with a TV crew waiting in the wings. Without much option but to obey the president, Sepúlveda sat in front of the camera and described the experience as positive. “I am very content this happened to me because it was the moment in which I needed to change my life. I was with God and the Devil and they fought over me. God won. I took the best hand, the hand of God, and never did I doubt that God would get me out of the mine. I always knew.”
Then Sepúlveda raced out to embrace Ávalos. The two men hugged as smiles filled their faces. The threat of the thirty-three men to stay united on the hilltop until all had arrived above ground seemed forgotten. The preparations by rescue workers—consultations with lawyers, threats to suspend health care, the convoy of ambulances at the ready to deliver the thirty-three by land—were all unnecessary. Sepúlveda and Ávalos strode proudly toward the helicopter. The rush of emotions and the gratitude they felt in the moment had erased all presumptions of a miner rebellion.
Juan Illanes
Carlos Mamani
Jimmy Sánchez
Osmán Araya
José Ojeda
Claudio Yañez
Mario Gómez
Alex Vega
Jorge Galleguillos
Edison Peña
Carlos Barrios
Victor Zamora
Victor Segovia
Daniel Herrera
One by one, the men were rescued with military precision. Each man had his story, his family and the emotional first hug, first kiss. Some dropped to their knees and prayed, others cried. It was enough raw emotion to make the world stop and watch in wonder. Hour after hour, the world was captivated by a shared sensation of compassion.
The Phoenix, its Chilean flag motif ever more battered and scratched, was a modern workhorse: firm, unfailing and loyal.
Miner after miner climbed into the capsule and rode to freedom. The men had doused themselves in a cheap cologne that had been smuggled down to them. They were not economical in their pursuit of a sweet smell. “God, the capsule stunk of cologne,” said one of the rescuers. “Whatever it was, they were all using the same brand. It was overwhelming.”
Richard Villarroel took a final series of photographs before he left. He wanted to capture the last images of the refuge, his bed, his friends hugging and smiling and posing. The men had decorated the safety refuge like a museum exhibit, the walls hung with the flags of their favorite soccer teams as well as huge thank-you notes to the rescue team.
Entering the capsule with headphones strapped to his ears, Guatemalan crooner Ricardo Arjona singing in his head, Villarroel said he felt a sadness. “It was painful to see my friends below as I was leaving them.” But as the capsule drew toward the surface, Villarroel began to scream with joy. He cursed the mine. “Then I felt a change in the air. Fresh air—that was my favorite moment. . . . What a difference.”
For a worldwide audience estimated at one billion viewers, the Chilean mine rescue was picture perfect. The grainy video footage from underground seemed like a live shot from another planet. To many viewers, the drama and collective excitement was reminiscent of the first Apollo landing in 1969, when Neil Armstrong took those famous first steps on the surface of the moon.
At the bottom of the mine, however, the script was unraveling.
At 1:30 am, as the capsule came down to pick up Omar Reygadas, miner number 17, a sharp crack echoed through the tunnel. Then came the crash of boulders and the rumble of an avalanche. The camera filming the rescue went blank. Now Operation San Lorenzo was blind.
At the head of the telecommunications post, Pedro Gallo immediately called by intercom to the miners below. He asked Pedro Cortés, who had helped wire the underground telecommunications hookup, to investigate. Cortés was hesitant; the fiber-optic cable was close to the recent avalanche. The dust had not even settled and now he was being asked to enter a potentially deadly zone of the tunnel.
“You’re sending me down there? You know it’s not safe in there. There’ve been two avalanches,” Cortés stammered. Earlier in the year he had lost a finger inside the mine; now he was being asked to risk far more.
Gallo told him that a live video feed was crucial. The winch operators needed to see the operation live so they could gently guide the capsule to the ground. A rough landing could damage or jam the Phoenix. President Piñera and approximately one out of every four adults on the planet were watching.
Cortés reluctantly agreed to run the ultimate obstacle course. He would have to negotiate a gauntlet of falling rock from the recently collapsed roof, cracked and still cracking walls and then traverse a muddy 200-yard stretch. As he followed the fiber-optic cable, Cortés found the problem: a rock fall had sliced the cable.
There was no possibility of repairing the damage. Hundreds of pounds of rocks had buried and destroyed the line. Gallo thought for a moment and then figured out an instant solution: he could take a cable that fed the camera in the safety refuge some 1,000 feet below, disconnect it from that camera and have the miners rewire that same live fiber-optic cable to the main camera filming the rescue.
Gallo called down to the phone in the refuge and was shocked when Franklin Lobos picked up. Lobos was alone at the far end of the tunnel that had already suffered two avalanches. “Franklin! What are you doing there?”
“It’s my shift. I’m receiving the food for the rescue workers,” said Lobos, loyal and stoic. “Duty is duty and it is my turn. I have to complete the shift.”
“Old man, you’re nuts! There have been two collapses! Get out of there. Now,” Gallo screamed into the phone.
“But the food? What about the food for the rescuers?” Lobos was stuck on protocol, unconcerned or unaware of the looming danger.
“Forget about it,” Gallo yelled. “I’ll send food down in the capsule. Get out!”
As Gallo scrambled to configure a new fiber-optic system, President Piñera, Televisión Nacional de Chile and Otto, the winch operator, all had the same urgent question: What happened to the image?
Gallo told Piñera and Otto the truth—that they had lost the signal and were working to reestablish a live image of the miners below. To TVN he simply reloaded a video clip from earlier in the rescue. “They were going crazy that there was no image, so I took some earlier shots and put those on the air. Then I asked them if they had image and they said thanks.” A billion viewers around the world were also tricked. They never realized that the image of perfection being broadcast was a rerun to cover up a dramatic chapter far too risky for the Chilean government to allow the world to see. Like all reality television, the miner drama also required sleight of hand, editing and a script.
But there was no putting the actual rescue on hold. Beginning with Omar Reygadas, three miners were raised to safety without the benefit of live video from below.
“My ride up was pretty anxious,” said Omar Reygadas, the seventeenth man to be rescued. As Reygadas was preparing to enter the Phoenix, the door jammed. Rescue workers could not get it open. Using a crowbar, they pried the metal mesh door open. “I thought the mine did not want me to leave,” said Reygadas. “After they pried it open, they could not get it shut, so they used a plastic strap. I held the door as I went up so it would not open.”
As the capsule rose, Reygadas began to taunt and joke with his companions below. “I was yelling to the guys below things like ‘Fuck, I am out of here. I made it. I made it! I made it.’ ” Despite the overwhelming joy, Reygadas also felt an instant nostalgia for his underground world. “We were leaving something behind. We had lived there for a long time. I had a feeling that I was leaving part of myself inside there. It was sixty-nine days. Part of me stayed down there. I told myself that it would be my bad characteristics and that I would arrive at the surface with all my best characteristics.”
Reygadas, a widower, was eager to hug and greet what he calls his “little monkeys,” a troop of grandchildren. As he neared the surface, Reygadas began to scream to the rescue workers above. He would yell, “Chi . . . Chi . . . Chi . . .” and the responding “Le . . . Le . . . Le” was confirmation that he was nearly safe. “I heard a voice from above asking if I was okay, and I screamed, ‘Fuck yes,’ then I remembered the president was up there. . . .”
While Reygadas celebrated with his “little monkeys,” Pedro Gallo had to ask Cortés below to attempt another suicidal mission. This time, instead of skirting death halfway down the tunnel, to the fiber-optic station, Gallo asked him to run the entire 400 yards to the safety refuge, disconnect the cable and rewire the camera.
“Don’t send me again,” Cortés pleaded. Then he agreed to again run the gauntlet. But first he wanted to say goodbye. Cortés put his face close to a second camera that was operating underground and said, “If something happens to me, here I am for the last time.”
Gallo shivered with fear. He had sent Cortés on the mission; now he felt the weight of fate. If Cortés was crushed, maimed or killed, it would be on his conscience.
The avalanche had not sealed the tunnel—a fact confirmed when an exhausted Franklin Lobos arrived from below. He told Cortés that there was enough room to get by the two rock slides, wished him luck and prepared for his own escape. Cortés did not question the order; instead he prayed for his life, and prepared for one last trip to the refuge.
In a mine known to attract kamikaze miners, Cortés would now defy the gods a second time. Even under normal conditions the mine was capable of killing and maiming. Now, in this final act, it was ever more unstable and dangerous. Cortés survived the nearly hour-long journey and returned to a hero’s welcome.
“I had his life in my hands,” admitted Gallo, who at that point had been awake for more than forty-eight hours straight. “But it was a duty, and he had to carry it out.”
With the cable in hand, Cortés and Ticona connected the camera. Then Gallo reminded them that TVN was broadcasting a “live shot” that showed an empty screen—no capsule, no people. In reality, a number of miners and rescuers were waiting and milling about. If Gallo suddenly flipped to the real action, he would blow the charade as figures suddenly popped up on a few hundred million TV screens.
The stage was cleared, the live shot hooked back in, and then miners and rescuers were allowed to wander back into the shot. “They never noticed,” said Gallo with pride.
With increasing concern about the stability of the mountain, the rescue was speeded up. Instead of a leisurely pace, Operation San Lorenzo took on a new urgency. Bringing the first sixteen men to the surface had been a showcase to the world of Chilean efficiency and international cooperation. Now the vengeful mountain was threatening to drag the worldwide audience into a Titanic-sized tragedy. If a landslide were to smother the men at this last moment, it would also bury and kill a rare moment of global optimism. The atmosphere inside the mine still appeared cheery—music and balloons still bounced off the walls, but the sensation that the irate mine had one last round of surprises for the men was pervasive.
Esteban Rojas
Pablo Rojas
Darío Segovia
Yonni Barrios
Samuel Ávalos
Carlos Bugueño
José Henríquez
Renán Ávalos
Claudio Acuña
The rescue plan had been designed to include rescue workers trained both in the techniques of climbing and also in battlefield medicine. The Chilean Navy had sent two Marine Special Forces commandos with extensive medical background; they could handle any medical emergency and were loaded with everything from a locked box containing morphine to a needle loaded with anti-anxiety drugs. But in deference to local sentiment, Minister Golborne at the last moment broke with protocol and instead allowed Pedro Rivero, a local rescue worker, to rush to the bottom of the mine to help out. Rivero had risked his life in early attempts to find the miners and was a representative of the regional rescue corps. No one could question his bravery or his technical rescue skills. His timing, however, could not have been worse. With military-like precision, the entire rescue protocol had long been decided; now, Rivero’s improvisational appearance sent a sliver of chaos into the finely tuned procedures.
Rivero stepped from the capsule and immediately caused problems. He brandished a camera, started filming and headed into the depths of the mine, the same tunnel that had just collapsed twice. Rivero’s mission was, according to Pedro Gallo, who watched the whole scene, to film the last scenes in the refuge. None of the miners or rescue workers thought this was sensible. “Never rescue a rescue worker” was a motto for the entire team. With avalanches already threatening the integrity of the operation, an added risk like that taken by Rivero was seen as mad.
When Rivero returned, he asked for the phone and declared that he had been sent on a special mission by Golborne himself; now it would be his job to stay below until the end. According to Rivero, he would be the last man out. The navy men were dumbstruck. From a military point of view, Rivero’s actions were close to treason.
A raging argument broke out. The navy men threatened to stuff Rivero into the capsule by force.
As he coordinated phone calls with Pedro Gallo, Cortés heard the raging argument nearby and was stunned by its source.
“What’s happening?” Cortés asked Gallo. “The rescuers are arguing; didn’t they come here to rescue us?” The miners gathered to watch the bizarre spectacle.
A call from Golborne came down. Rivero was summoned to explain his rebellion to the authorities above. Rivero stayed firm and refused to take the call. Gallo wondered if the commandos would have to stuff the feisty Rivero into the Phoenix, but in the end words were sufficient.
As Rivero reluctantly approached the Phoenix, the commandos grabbed his bag of souvenirs—rocks and minerals from the depths of the mine. They dumped out the rocks, handed back the empty sack and made it clear that Rivero was leaving the scene. Rivero entered the Phoenix of his own accord, and then in a final act of defiance slammed the metal mesh door shut. The miners watched in shock as Rivero slipped up and out of sight. Thanks to the luxury of seven live cameras, judicious editing and Pedro Gallo, the world saw not a single second of this center stage drama.
With Rivero and his scandal out of the way, the rescue entered the final phase. Franklin Lobos was the twenty-seventh miner to be hauled up. As the capsule climbed, he heard a deep rumbling. The crash of rock. Was the shaft compromised? How close was that one? Acoustics inside the mine were tricky. Sometimes a conversation seemed to drift down the tunnels and arrive like a whisper. Other times a vacuum appeared to suck away the words from a colleague nearby. Lobos was sure this crash was close. “It sounded like a whole level came down,” he said.
At 7:20 pm, when he made it safely to the surface, Lobos was met by his daughter Carolina. He grabbed her in a tight hug. She spread her open palms across his face; for a moment they stared into each other’s eyes. Carolina then handed her father a new soccer ball. He took the cue and began a dexterous display of foot juggling. Lobos’s new life had begun. He would never be the same person who entered the mine ten weeks earlier. Even the smallest rituals of normalcy were now delicious.
Inside the triage hospital, an entire wall was covered with the names of the miners and the rescuers. Each time the Phoenix surfaced, a name was checked off. The celebration was beginning.
Family members crowded at bedsides to hold hands with the still-stunned miners. A cacophony of ringing cell phones, the echo of backslapping hugs and the bustle of a hundred people inside the makeshift clinic was interrupted every half hour as the latest rescued miner was wheeled in to a chorus of cheers. Doctors hugged F16 pilots. Nurses posed with submarine commanders. Paramedics, geologists and mapmakers embraced for what was likely the last time. After months of constant teamwork and nonstop contact, the battle was nearly over.
Richard Villarroel
Juan Aguilar
Raúl Bustos
Pedro Cortés
Ariel Ticona
The list of successful rescues continued. By 9:30 pm, all but the last miner had been extricated.
Once again, the Phoenix descended deep into the mine, the prison in which thirty-three men had been trapped for over two months. At the bottom of the mine, Urzúa stepped carefully into the capsule. He took a look around and then was headed up. His mission was nearly complete.
President Piñera and what looked like dozens of aides were crowded by the rescue hole. The once strict police controls had evaporated, and spectators flooded the site. Down at Camp Hope the growing tension was about to explode. Around the world, a billion viewers stared in disbelief. What had seemed like a tragic tale of dead miners was about to be rewritten into the story of the most remarkable rescue in recent memory. Thirty-three men. Two thousand three hundred feet. Sixty-nine days. The cold facts spoke of certain death. Now the live shot of Urzúa arriving to a cheering entourage was like a fairy tale.
At Camp Hope, champagne, balloons and cheers filled the cold starry night. A community built on faith and determination had beaten the odds.
Urzúa stepped forward to shake hands with Piñera. In a tradition as old as mining itself, he symbolically passed the responsibility for the men from his command. “Mr. President,” he said, “my shift is over.”
As he was wheeled into the triage hospital, Urzúa, looking taciturn and serious, crossed his thick arms over his chest. His face shrouded in beard, he was the least likely of world heroes. Ten weeks earlier he had entered San José as the shift supervisor at an unknown gold and copper mine. Now he was a symbol of global goodwill. Having narrowly dodged a date with death, Urzúa was given a second chance, a new slate and a reincarnation on a scale of which most humans can only dream. While Urzúa basked in glory, the Phoenix continued to labor as each of the rescuers was slowly lifted to safety.
It was a rescue made possible by a global outpouring of generosity. Hundreds of anonymous workers turned their lives upside down to save the miners. Some built drills. Others shipped thousand-pound drill bits. Others, like Hart, guided the drills. The realm of possible solutions had been swamped by Piñera’s early decision to seek help from around the globe. He later remarked that he was guided by the Russian government’s stubborn refusal to seek help when the Kursk, a Russian submarine, sank to the ocean floor. “The Russians could have asked for technology help from England, but they didn’t,” said Piñera. “I personally called every president I knew and sought technical solutions.”
González, the last rescuer left below, played down his bravery and said he was merely one link in the chain. He started to read a book left by one of the miners as he awaited his own exit in the Phoenix. Before leaving, he had one last desire. “I wanted to turn off the lights,” he admitted. “But they wouldn’t let me.”
Many miners felt the same impulse to flip a switch and shut down an experience that was still too painful and recent to bear the scrutiny of full analysis.
When González was hauled up from the San José mine, the winch stopped. The noisy motors shut down, and, after ten weeks of suffering and struggle, Camp Hope overflowed with the joy of a fleeting but perfect moment.
As the last helicopter flew off to the Copiapó hospital, Pedro Gallo looked up at the dazzling desert sky. Thousands of stars winked. The heavens, for a moment, seemed closer.
“They have left a permanent record of something beautiful here.”