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André Sugaret pulls up the collar of his jacket against the chilly desert air. It's 2 a.m. at Operation San Lorenzo, the Chilean government's effort to rescue 33 miners trapped by the collapse of the San Jose mine. Sugaret arrived here two weeks ago to lead the rescue effort. Around him, floodlights beam onto nine massive drills tunneling down into the earth, trying to reach the miners.
but so far they've been digging in vain. They're no closer to finding the miners now than they were when they started. He needs to check the drill's progress one last time before he heads back to his hotel to sleep. He approaches borehole 10B, dug out by the first drill to arrive on the site, the Schramm T685.
It's been clearing 800 feet per day, far quicker than the other drills. But what it has in speed, it lacks in accuracy. It's aiming for the refuge, a small room 2,200 feet down, where the miners are likely to be sheltering. But it's already missed its target twice. Sugaret hopes the third time will be the charm.
He approaches the back of the truck the Schramm is mounted on. There, drill operator Nelson Flores monitors the gauges that tell him how fast the drill bit is turning, how much resistance it's meeting, and whether it's on target. Sugaret waves at him to power down so they can talk. "How are we looking?" "The diorite has us off course again, boss. It's like the mine is fighting us." Sugaret curses.
The San Jose mine is carved in a mountain made primarily of diorite, a rock twice as dense as granite. It's been knocking all their drills off course, including the Schramm. Flores looks to Sugaret for guidance. "Want me to pull it back and start a fresh hole?" Sugaret weighs his options. It's been 15 days since the collapse. Any miner still alive would be starving by now, dehydrated and wasting away. Every minute matters.
They can't afford to start over. "No, keep going. We're running out of time." The drill operator nods. They both know it's a big gamble, but it's one they have to take. There's always a chance that their maps of the mine are wrong, or that the diorite might give them a break and knock the drill back on course. Sugaret whispers a prayer under his breath. Behind him, Flores powers the drill back up, drowning out his words.
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Two weeks after the collapse of the San Jose mine, 33 trapped miners found themselves starving to death with little hope for rescue. Above ground, all of Chile watched as the Operation San Lorenzo rescue effort dragged on. And all of Chile wondered, would the miners be found in time? Or would the San Jose collapse become one of the worst mining tragedies in Chilean history? This is Episode 3.
The Breakthrough Mario Sepulveda sits at the break table in the refuge, waiting until it's time to serve lunch. It's been 15 days since the collapse, and the room is now filthy. The floor is covered in muddy boot prints, sweat-soaked t-shirts, and soggy piles of cardboard, which the trapped miners use as makeshift sleeping cots. Sepulveda wouldn't let his dog sleep in a place this foul.
He hears the sound of an approaching drill, but by now he expects it to miss them, like all the rest before it. For a while, the constant sounds of drilling gave him hope. Now, it's torture. It's clear that no one on the surface has any idea how to find them.
Sepulveda stares wearily at the wall clock. One more minute until it strikes noon. Then he will feed his fellow miners. Today, it will only be half a cookie and a spoonful of tuna. Yesterday, nobody ate to stretch their dwindling rations. At last, the minute and hour hand line up. Noon. Sepulveda rises unsteadily and crosses the refuge to the emergency supply cabinet.
Inside, all that remains are a half dozen packets of cookies and two cans of tuna. Around the refuge, miners stagger to their feet and line up for their meal. Sepulveda pops the top on one of the tuna cans. A bite of tuna for you and half a cookie. He spoons out tiny chunks of tuna to the miners, at least to the ones who can still stand. Many have already given up.
waiting on their backs all day for death to end their misery. Sepulveda eats last, then crosses to the plastic water barrel for a drink. The barrel is almost empty. He scrapes his water bottle along the bottom, which is covered in a thin layer of congealed machine oil. The water is contaminated with oil and other chemicals, but it's all they have left to drink. Sepulveda's empty stomach churns against the dirty water.
He rushes outside the refuge, and a wave of relief washes over him, but it evaporates in an instant. He's still stuck in a mine. He's still starving. He's still going to die down here. Sepulveda pulls out the piece of wrinkled paper that he's been saving for a letter to his son, Francisco. With a trembling hand, he begins to write: "My son, remember the movie Braveheart? About the warrior who protects his people?
That is what you must do. Take care of and protect your mother and your sister. You are now the man of the house." He puts down his pencil, overcome with emotion. He feels himself begin to weep, except there's no tears. He's too dehydrated to cry. On the surface, Schramm drill operator Nelson Flores finishes his third cup of coffee.
He lays the empty styrofoam on top of the drill's control panel. Next to the rosary beads he hangs over the controls at the start of each shift. It's nearly 6 AM, and except for the constant rumble of the drills, it's quiet. In Camp Esperanza, emotionally exhausted families doze in their tents. Around the drill site, Flores' co-workers are all half asleep on their feet.
Flores reaches up and fingers the rosary, saying a little prayer. The beads were a gift from his 16-year-old daughter, who died last year. He likes to think she's watching over him as he performs this important task. She would want the children of the miners to see their fathers again. Flores checks his depth finder gauge and finds the drill has reached 2,244 feet. That's almost the depth of his target, the refuge.
He glides his hand over the control panel's knobby levers, grasps the throttle, and eases off, slowing the drill from 20 revolutions per minute to 5. The last thing he wants to do now is break the drill bit. A cold, pre-dawn wind blows across the desert. Flores puts his hand on the metal scaffolding that encases the drill shaft and closes his eyes.
He tries to feel the drill's vibrations as its tungsten carbide bit hammers through the rock half a mile beneath him. It feels like the entire world has reduced to just him, the drill, and the mountain. He knows he must be getting close. Suddenly, the drill jerks on his mounting. Its smooth, steady rotation becomes a violent stutter.
Flores slams the pressurized brake to halt the drill's progress. He checks the pressure gauge that measures the rock's resistance against the drill bit, and sees that it's dropped to zero, which can only mean one thing: the drill has broken through the hard diorite and into open air, somewhere in the mine. As the drill stops turning and goes quiet, Flores hears another sound, shouts of excitement,
His co-workers, half asleep a moment ago, are now wide awake and running towards him, hoping that this is the breakthrough they've been waiting for. Luis Ursua wakes up with a jolt. He's lying on the floor of the mechanic's shop, his usual spot to catch some sleep. From somewhere deeper in the mine, he hears the sound of tumbling rocks and something else. A grinding noise. Then it stops.
For a moment Ursua wonders if he dreamt it. Then, next to him, the pastor Jose Enriquez sits up, listening intently. "Is that another cave-in? No, it's something else." Ursua thinks he knows what the sound was, but he isn't sure. He doesn't want to get his hopes up. Then he hears the other miners running up the ramp from the refuge, shouting and cheering. That's when he knows for sure what he heard.
He leaps to his feet and grins at Enriquez. "It's a drill! They've finally broken through!" Ursua runs down the ramp to the sound of the whooping men. He arrives to see them gathered around a hole in the ceiling. It's only a few inches wide, but there, poking out of it, is a tungsten-tipped drill bit.
For a second, Ursua and all the miners stand frozen in mute shock. It's been 17 days since they had any contact with the outside world, and now, here it is. Then the drill drops to the floor of the mine, like someone just let it fall.
The sound snaps Urzúa from his stupor, and he shouts out, Go! Go! Go! The miners spring into action, executing the roles they've rehearsed in the event of a breakthrough. They can use the drill to communicate with the surface, but they may only have a few minutes before the drillers pull it back up again. Quickly, Sepulveda leads a group of men armed with wrenches and other heavy tools. They pound on the drill's steel tubing.
The ramp fills with the deafening sound of metal clanging against metal. Their hope is that the reverberations will travel up to the surface to alert the rescuers to their presence. Ursua steps forward to instruct a miner with a can of red spray paint. "Right there! All the way around the drill bit!" The miner shakes and sprays, emptying his whole can. When the drill is retracted, maybe rescuers will spot the line of paint that wasn't there before.
Now other miners step forward and attach messages to the drill bit. They wrap scraps of paper and plastic and tie them to the drill with electrical tape and rubber tubing. Sepulveda rips the elastic waistband off his underpants and uses it to lash a note to the drill.
Urzua's heart swells. His men's response to the drill breakthrough is exactly what he hoped for. There are no more messages left to attach, so Urzua picks up a wrench and joins in, swinging at the drill with everything he's got. Andrei Suguret presses his ear to the drill pipe at borehole 10B. He strains to make sense of the faint clanging sounds vibrating up the pipe,
Beside him, drill operator Nelson Flores buzzes with excitement. He's already decided what the vibrations mean. "It's gotta be the miners! Only people can make those sounds!" But Suguret thinks otherwise. A few small rocks ricocheting off the drill's steel tubing could easily be mistaken for man-made sounds. And there's 2,200 feet of that steel tubing in a mountain that's still shifting and settling.
Sugaret knows from experience how breakthrough moments go with rescues. Men work around the clock, get emotionally invested, and stop thinking analytically. Flores is letting his hope cloud his judgment. It's just too soon to know for sure if the vibrations are coming from the miners. Sugaret pats Flores' shoulder. I hope you're right. I hope it's them.
But don't say a word of this to anyone yet, especially the families. We have to be sure. Mining Minister Lawrence Goldborn approaches and beckons Sugaret over. When they're out of earshot of the drilling crew, Goldborn leans close. So what happens now? Well, you pull up the drill and check for signs of life. And how long will that take? Until the afternoon.
Sugaret explains the process of retracting the drill and why it's so time-consuming. The drill is attached to 115 pieces of interlinked pipe, weighing a total of 22 tons. Each 20-foot segment of pipe has to be pulled up and detached, one by one. It's grueling, tedious work, but there's no other way to take out the drill bit. Goldborn listens and nods.
And once the drill bit is out, can we send down a camera? Confirm they're alive? That's the plan. But there's just one other thing. Sugaret hesitates. Even after leading dozens of mining rescues, he still hates saying what he's about to say. Make sure that when we do lower down the camera, it's just you, me, and the camera operator watching. No one else can be allowed to see. Because, listen, the reality is...
Even if men are still alive down there, the odds are we're gonna see some dead bodies. The blood drains from Goldburn's face. The politician nods his head somberly. Sugaret turns and heads back to borehole 10B. It's not time to celebrate, he thinks. We've barely even begun. Down on the ramp, Mario Sepulveda leads his fellow miners in the National Miners' Chant.
They dance around the drill bit like a totem pole, waving their arms. Pure elation surges through every cell in Sepulveda's body, an ecstatic release after two weeks cut off from the world, his family, and the life-giving sun. But then he notices that one man is not dancing, Luis Ursua. He follows his former supervisor's gaze to the drill bit and sees why.
Water used to cool the drill is trickling down from overhead, soaking the drill bit. Already, most of their red spray paint has washed away, and the plastic bags containing their precious messages are beginning to get soggy. If the plastic isn't watertight, their scrawled words could be unreadable by the time they reach the surface.
Sepulveda is about to ask if anyone has another can of spray paint, but then the drill bit jerks to life and retracts up into the hole. A miner to the left of Sepulveda waves as the drill vanishes up into the dark, then turns to Sepulveda with a grin and begins to chant again. But Sepulveda no longer feels like chanting.
Instead, he bows his head and says a silent prayer that all their messages, their proofs of life, will survive the 2,200 foot journey back to the surface.
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Head over to Symbiotica.com and use code ODDS for 20% off and free shipping on your subscription order. Mining Minister Lawrence Goldborn stands by hole 10B, nervously gripping a helmet given to him by the miners' families. Behind him, policemen stand guard along a ring of barricades that encircle the Schramm drill, keeping the press and miners' families at bay.
In front of him, the drill team works steadily, retracting the drill, one 20-foot length of pipe at a time. It's mid-afternoon, nine hours since the drill first broke through. Ever since, the minister has been anxiously waiting. When they pull out the drill bit and see if there's anything attached to it, only then will they know if the miners are okay. The drill crew uses a pulley system to haul up the next 400-pound steel tube.
They lay it on the growing pile of tubes and the foreman calls out. "Number 115." Goldborn's heart skips a beat. That's the last tube. The next piece they pull out will be the drill bit. He looks down at the helmet in his hands. It's covered with signatures from the miners' families. A token of appreciation for sharing in their journey as a human, not a politician. Then he feels a tap on his shoulder.
He turns and sees Sugaret, looking hopeful but grim. "Whatever happens, we deliver the news." Goldborn nods. They're in it together now. The muddy drill bit emerges from the earth. Goldborn hovers near as the drillers wash it clean. That's when he sees it. A streak of red paint. He grabs the drill operator's shoulder. "Was that there before?" "No, sir. No, it wasn't."
Goldborn spots something else. A length of rubber tubing wrapped around the drill bit. He pries it loose, and something falls to the ground. It's damp and covered in dirty plastic, but right away, he sees what it is. A note. He carefully peels away the plastic, unfolds the paper, and silently reads. The driller, Nelson Flores, leans forward.
"Minister, what's it say?" Goldborn gathers his emotions. "It says, 'We are well in the refuge, the 33.'" Several drillers hop the fence and run downhill to tell the families and the media, directly disobeying Goldborn's orders. But he doesn't care. They found the miners, and all 33 of them are still alive.
Luis Ursua is trying to take a nap in the cab of his Toyota pickup truck when he hears one of the miners calling his name. "Boss, there's something coming down the hole!" Ursua jumps out of his truck and trots down the ramp. It's been hours since the drill broke through. Now, finally, the people above are sending something to help them. Food. Water. Medicine. Whatever it is, Ursua wants to be there when it arrives.
He gets to the hole and finds all the other miners pressed together, staring up. He hears a mysterious clunking sound making its way down the borehole. The hole is too dark and narrow to see whatever's coming. Finally, the object emerges, a glass orb on some sort of swivel. It dangles there, looking shiny and alien. Ursua stares at it, baffled.
All he can tell is that it's some piece of technology. But what? Finally, a miner beside Ursua nudges him forward. "It's a camera. Talk to it, boss. Say something." Ursua can't see speakers or a microphone, but he leans close to the device, trying to think of something to say. "If you can hear me, move the camera up and down." Ursua waits, and then the camera rotates up and down on its swivel.
All around Urzúa, the miners erupt in cheers. Two thousand feet above, someone heard him. After 17 days of total isolation, they finally made contact with the surface. Andres Suguret kicks a tire of the big rigged truck that's supporting the Schramm drill. He's furious. The camera's audio system is broken. He can hear Urzúa and the miners, but they can't hear him.
Two feet away, the camera operator's screen displays the ghost-like black and white images of Luis Ursua, Mario Sepulveda, and a half dozen of other bare-chested miners. Their weary eyes gaze into the camera. Ursua's confused voice pleads from the display unit speakers. "What should we do? What's coming next?"
The question nearly makes Sugaret fling his helmet on the ground. He turns to the camera operator. "So you're telling me we drilled down to men two thousand feet in a diorite mine, but we can't get a camera with working audio?" "Sir, I'm sorry. I'm working on it." The camera operator fiddles with his controls as Sugaret storms over to the tent that serves as the main hub for Operation San Lorenzo. Fortunately,
He has a plan B for how to communicate with the miners. In the tent, Sugret examines the next piece of the rescue puzzle: supply pods the rescuers have named palomas, after the Spanish word for messenger pigeons. They're plastic tubes of various lengths, each a bit wider than a beer can with a screw-on lid.
Every Paloma will have to make hundreds of 2,000-foot journeys up and down the six-inch diameter borehole, carrying messages, food, water, or medicine. But this first Paloma will carry something else. Sugaret had hoped he could send a telephone down in one of the Palomas, but he was told it wouldn't fit. So he asked a local inventor to cobble together something that would.
Now, he examines the jerry-rigged device. It's just a few pieces of plastic attached to nine phone wires, tied together with knots and reinforced with electrical tape. It looks amateurish. He flags down one of his best mining technicians. "Test this phone. Beat it up. Then make sure it still works."
He sends the technician off to put the telephone through a stress test, but he realizes that getting a working phone down to the miners won't be enough. The phone has to be deconstructed to fit inside the Paloma tube, so Sugaret needs to make sure there's someone down below who can put it back together. He crosses to a nearby desk and begins scanning the roster of the 33 trapped men, hoping to hell they've got themselves an electrical engineer.
Down in the half-lit gloom of the ramp, Luis Ursúa lingers over the shoulder of Edison Peña, the mechanic shop's electrician. He's 34, high-strung, with a long, serious face. Peña's scrawny hands tremble as he carefully assembles the deconstructed emergency phone. The other miners huddle around, watching in tense silence.
Ursula wonders why the rescuers didn't send food first, but he reminds himself this situation is unprecedented for them as well. Undoubtedly, they're doing their best. He gently taps Peña's shoulder. "How much longer will it take?" "Just a few more seconds." Ursula watches Peña fasten the telephone wire to the receiver, the final few twists of his screwdriver. Then, he brings the headset to his ear. "Hello?"
This is the miners. Can you hear me? For a few seconds, everyone holds their breath. But then Peña's face lights up. He looks at Ursúa. They want to talk to you. Ursúa takes the receiver and clears his throat. This is Luis Ursúa, the shift supervisor. We are in good spirits, waiting for you to rescue us. Ursúa hears the other end of the phone line switch him to speakerphone.
Then, a dignified voice responds. "This is Mining Minister Lawrence Goldborn. There's a whole team up here ready to provide you with immediate help. We'll be sending water and liquids, with instructions from a doctor." "Okay, we've been drinking some water, but we've already eaten most of the food we had down here." His men nod, then crowd close to the phone's receiver to hear the response.
We will work on it immediately. But I want you to know, yesterday all of Chile celebrated when we made contact with you. The president has been here four times already and is at camp with your families, waiting and praying for you. All around Ursúa, the miners break into another round of cheering. Ursúa clutches the phone's receiver tight to study his swell of emotions. His wife is out there. His country has been watching. People care.
Behind him, Sepulveda begins belting out the Chilean national anthem. Soon, all the miners join in, lifting their voices, knowing that finally, the people above ground can hear them. Mario Sepulveda reaches up to grab another Paloma as it slides out of the borehole. The exuberant surge of energy from the telephone call a few hours ago has already subsided.
Half of the miners have retreated to their makeshift cardboard beds, still too weak from starvation to stand for more than a few minutes at a time. So once again, Sepulveda takes the lead and receives the latest delivery from the rescuers above ground. He unclips the Paloma tube from its tethering line and begins to unscrew the lid. His heart races with anticipation. This must be what they've all been waiting for, what the Minister of Mining promised them: food.
He turns the Paloma upside down. Metallic foil packets tumble onto the ramp's dusty floor. Sepulveda picks one up and scowls as he reads the label. Glucose gel. He wanted steak. A candy bar. Even just a can of Coca-Cola. Not some half-liquid goop. He yells to Ursua.
What is this crap they're sending us? Don't they know we haven't eaten real food in two weeks? I know, but on the phone, the doctor explained to me that our stomachs aren't ready for regular food yet. We have to drink this stuff first, to build up our strength. Reluctantly, Sepulveda bends down and picks up the glucose packets to distribute to his fellow miners. Each packet contains 500 measly calories.
But then he notices something else with the food. A bundle of small papers, rubber banded with pencils. He picks one up and studies it. It's a questionnaire. The first few questions are straightforward. Are you injured? Are you sick? How do you feel on a scale of 1 to 10? But the last question makes Sepulveda pause. It reads, who is in charge? In his heart of hearts, Sepulveda knows it's him.
He earned it. He split his lip climbing to find a way out. He fed the men during the meals. He fetched the water and called for the prayer circle. He's sure his fellow miners will write his name on the questionnaire. Not Ursua's or anyone else's, but just to be sure, he has one last act of leadership to perform.
One by one, Sepulveda dispenses the food to the miners. He waits as each weary man opens his packet and slurps down the life-giving gel. Then, as soon as each miner has eaten, Sepulveda hands them a questionnaire. A little politicking never hurt anybody, he thinks. After feeding everyone in the refuge, he makes his way up to the mechanic's shop and hands out more gel packets and questionnaires.
When he starts to walk away, he overhears Edison Pena talking to the pastor, Jose Enriquez. This last question, should we put Sepulveda? No, are you crazy? It must be Ursua. He's the shift supervisor. He should be the one to work with the rescuers on top. Sepulveda feels his hands clench into fists. The disrespect is galling, especially from a man he's prayed with every single day.
But he swallows his anger and continues down the ramp to feed more miners. Let them say whatever they want on their questionnaires, he thinks. He knows this crisis has transformed him into a leader. And soon, the whole world is going to see what kind of leader he really is.
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It's day 24 of the rescue and he and Goulborn are on the hunt for more drills. The one they're trying to order from Pennsylvania is a rare clustered drill bit. It's four interlocking drill bits in one, each the size of a soccer ball. They'll need it for the next phase of the rescue plan, to drill a new hole 29 inches wide, just enough for the trapped miners to be pulled out safely.
Sugaret grows frustrated. He doesn't have time to wait around. "Lawrence, will you please? I need to make my rounds." The Minister of Mining nods. Sugaret stands and heads out to check on the many moving pieces he needs to keep organized.
Since the miners were located, Sugaret has ordered multiple new drilling operations to get them out. First, he passes by Plan A, a bulldozer flattening a worksite for the arrival of one of the biggest drill rigs in Chile, the Strata 950. The 31-ton beast can easily drill a hole wide enough to extract the miners, but it's slow and can only drill straight down.
Next, he checks the site they're clearing for plan B, a powerful oil drill, which can be faster but takes more time to assemble. Some of the smaller drills that didn't find the miners are being packed up to make room for it. Sugaret waves to a truck driver carrying away one of the old drills. The driver toots his horn as he passes. Since the miners were found, everyone's in a good mood.
If they only knew how many different things could still go wrong, Sugarette thinks. At last, Sugarette arrives at Borehole 10B, the new center of all activity at Operation San Lorenzo. For now, they're still using it to deliver Palomas full of food, water, and supplies to the miners. But when that new clustered drill bit from Pennsylvania finally arrives, this will become Plan C.
They'll take the 6-inch borehole and widen it from a lifeline to an escape route. A short distance from Hole 10B stands a new structure, a metal shack roughly 6 by 8 feet wide. This is where they've set up the other end of the jerry-rigged emergency telephone. Today, for the first time, miners' families are being allowed to enter the shack and speak with their loved ones 2,000 feet below.
Sugaret ducks his head inside the shack to see how it's going. There, he sees a government-appointed psychologist, Alberto Itura, sitting alongside one of the miner's wives. She wipes tears from her eyes as she has her first conversation with her husband since the collapse. Everyone up here is fine, but we've cried a lot. We just miss you so much. Itura leans close to the sobbing woman. Pull yourself together. Remember...
Keep it upbeat. Sugarette knows the psychologist is following guidance from NASA, who have been brought into the rescue mission as consultants. According to the space agency, men who spend weeks in extreme isolation do better with short, positive messages from home, rather than long, heartfelt conversations. Still, he finds the whole scene distasteful.
This is a private, emotional moment. It doesn't feel right that some dispassionate shrink is sticking his nose in it. Suguret isn't sold on Itura's role to form psychological profiles of each of the miners, assess the social dynamics down below, and improve their mental health. Right off the bat, Suguret didn't like the questionnaire Itura sent down. The last question about who was in charge could only stir up conflict.
But Sugaret kept quiet and raised no objections. It's not his job to psychoanalyze the miners. It's his job to get them out. Sugaret leaves the communication shack and walks over to a new hole being drilled directly adjacent to hole 10B. It will carry coils of fiber-optic cable, electrical lines, and a tube to pump in chilled oxygen.
The miners will have improved communication, colder air, and even television to watch soccer. Sugaret pulls the team's geologist aside. "How are we looking? Now that we know where to aim, right on target." Sugaret nods. It's taken three weeks, but he's finally got Operation San Lorenzo running like a well-oiled machine. For a second, Sugaret feels almost optimistic.
But then, over at hole 10B, he sees a team of doctors preparing to send down the next Paloma, and he remembers what it's full of: catheters. On a medical checkup call yesterday, some of the miners mentioned that it's excruciatingly painful when they try to urinate.
There's no doctor down below, so one of the miners is going to have to become the de facto nurse. And if the situation doesn't improve, he'll have to start inserting catheters. Sugaret cringes at the thought. The miners are still suffering. Maybe the NASA advisors are right, he thinks. Maybe it's better not to tell them about all the sorrow and stress their plight is causing their loved ones. They have enough to worry about down there.
On the ramp just outside the refuge, Luis Ursua watches as a 50-year-old miner with scarred cheeks crouches by the bumper of a running truck and holds a water bottle up to the exhaust pipe. Earlier, the men nominated this miner to be their nurse because he once took care of his elderly grandmother. But Ursua can't understand what this truck's tailpipe has to do with nursing. What are you doing?
We found if the men hold a hot water bottle against their pelvis, it helps them pee." The nurse stands and hands the bottle to one of the old-timer miners, who gratefully accepts it and hobbles off to do his business. Urzua breathes a sigh of relief. If the hot water bottle trick works, that means they won't have to use the catheters. Near the running truck, the nurse miner has hung a metal basket from the ceiling.
It resembles an oversized supermarket fruit scale. The nurse notices Ursua, giving it a confused look. "That's a scale they sent down this morning. The doctors want me to monitor everyone's weight. Wanna climb in, boss?" "Later. I've got my call with the president in just five minutes." "Oh, that's right. Hold up. I'll come too." Ursua leads the way up the ramp to the phone. As he walks, he adjusts his white shift supervisor's helmet
It feels strange on his head since he started wearing it again just a few days ago, after the men voted to make him leader again. When he took it off just after the collapse, he wasn't sure if he'd ever put it back on. Back then, it was important to make all men feel like equals. But now that they're back in touch with the outside world, they need order and discipline. Ursua has split the miners strong enough to work into three eight-hour shifts.
Some organize the food and water or dispose of other miners' bodily waste. Others dig channels for the runoff water that pours down into the mine from the various drills working above them. Still others, like the nurse, perform more specialized tasks. It's all giving them newfound energy, a sense of purpose, making them feel like men again.
Ursua arrives at the bottom of the borehole, where the phone sits on a makeshift table. Mario Sepulveda, with another miner, stands at the Paloma station, receiving tubes. Edison Pena, the electrician, mans the phone, which he now holds out for Ursua. "It's time, boss." Ursua takes the phone, sits, and brings it to his ear. "Hello? This is Luis Ursua." He's surprised when a woman's voice responds.
"Please stand by for the President." Ursua waits. A few seconds later, President Piñera's unmistakable voice comes over the line. "Luis Ursua?" "Yes, sir." "It is an honor to meet you. I want to let you know that the world has united behind our government's effort to bring you home." "Thank you, sir. But could you tell us when the rescuers will be able to get us out of this hell?"
As Ursua speaks, he notices that nearly all the miners have gathered behind him. They crowd closer as he asks his most important question. There's a long silence before the president finally responds. God willing, we plan to have you out by Christmas. Ursua's face falls. Miners swear, kick rocks, smack the wall in anger.
The nurse shouts out, "But that's four months away!" Ursua waves at him to hush up and be respectful. But the truth is, he's disappointed too. Piñera keeps talking, but he barely hears him. He's calculating the number of days until Christmas in his head. 30 in September, 31 in October. The number he finally arrives at crushes him.
120 more days trapped underground. Before the breakthrough, his men were ready to give up on life entirely. Then, the drill gave them hope. But now the president himself has snatched away that hope in a single breath. He's asking them to remain down here for months. Away from their families. Away from the sun. Trapped in a mind that still rumbles with rockfalls morning, noon, and night.
A mind that could still claim their lives at any moment. The call with the president ends. Urzúa stands and turns to his men. They stare back at him, coated in grime, pupils dilated, lean as coyotes. In their eyes, he sees outrage. He shares that feeling, but he can't let it consume them. If it does, he won't be able to maintain order.
If Ursua can't find a way to keep these men in line for four more months, they could tear each other apart. This is episode three of our four-part series, Chilean Mind Collapse. A quick note about our scenes. In most cases, we can't exactly know what was said, but everything is based on historical research.
We use many sources when researching our stories, but we especially recommend Deep Down Dark by Hector Tobar and 33 Men by Jonathan Franklin.
I'm your host, Mike Corey. Brendan Joyce wrote this story. Our editor is Maura Walls. Additional editing by Matt Wise. Our associate producer is Brian White. Our audio engineer is Sergio Enriquez. Sound design is by Rob Schieliga. Our senior producer is Andy Herman. Our executive producers are Stephanie Jentz and Marshall Louis for Wondery.
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