Chilean Miners Rescue!!!

Tonight I have watched with awe as miners trapped far underground for more than two months are painstakingly and carefully rescued from their dark humid space…one by one in a capsule fittingly nicknamed the Phoenix. The men have bravely shown resilience and fortitude as they waited for rescue to come. Given that for the first seventeen days of their predicament they had no clue they would be saved…and the outside world had no clue they had survived…this is a glorious event.

The extraction of the miners is slow but meticulous. Each miner has been checked for physical and mental prowess and they are being rescued in a particular order, based on their ability to withstand possible complications while being removed, their fortitude and their overall health. Honestly, all thirty-three men are amazing to me. Heroes in their own right. They have lived in near darkness with high humidity and kept their spirit. This alone is an amazing feat. I also want to extend a well deserved mention to the paramedics who willingly were lowered into the depths to aid in the rescue from the very bottom of this shaft.

I admire all these men, their families and the people involved in making their rescue a continuing success. There was cooperation between nations as the escape capsule was developed and the rescue shaft constructed. Medical facilities are prepared for the emerging miners, complete with dimly lit rooms and all the concerns for a person trapped in the conditions of their mine taken into account. The president of Chile, Sebastian Pinera, is on hand to greet the men as they set foot on solid, above-ground earth again. Families cheer, hugs abound and these men are no doubt excited to be returned to their loved ones.

It is a miraculous ending to what could have been a tragic accident. It is still unfolding as each miner is sent upwards to freedom, each taking about an hour between sending the capsule down to the miners, situating the man into its interior then the slow, twisting climb back up.

My thoughts are sincerely with these men and their families, the rescuers who never gave up and kept the men’s best interest at heart, the international experts whose coming together to aid in this miraculous rescue will never be forgotten and the millions of people on our planet glued to their televisions and radios marveling at the rescues.

Welcome home fellas,

KW