A moment in Time

It's neat to experience moments that we know will go down in history. The good ones, the bad ones, the bad ones that turn in to good ones. Like 9/11, the first Black President of the United States of America (whether or not he is like, that's still history), and now today the Chilean Miners that were rescued from the mine they've been surviving in for nearly 70 days. I wanted to specifically note this event because these men have been such an amazing inspiring to me and lots of other people.
I am posting this article purely for history's sake so when I print my blog book, I have it forever. (taken from Fox News)

After 69 Days, All 33 Chilean Miners Have Been Rescued

Published October 13, 2010 Associated Press

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile-- The last of the Chilean miners has been raised from deep beneath the earth. All 33 men have now been delivered from the longest underground entrapment in history.

The foreman who held the group together when they were feared lost was the last man out. Luis Alberto Urzua was hoisted to safety in a joyous climax to a flawless rescue that captivated the world

The intricately planned rescue that ended late Wednesday moved with remarkable speed -- and flawless execution -- hauling up miner after miner in a cramped cage through a narrow hole drilled through 2,000 feet of rock.

The 33 men spent more than 69 days trapped in the lower reaches of the mine after a huge collapse of rock blocked the way out on Aug. 5.

The men emerged to the cheers of exuberant Chileans and before the eyes of a transfixed globe.

"Welcome to life," President Sebastian Pinera told Victor Segvia, the 15th miner out, and on a day of superlatives, it seemed no overstatement.

They rejoined a world intensely curious about their ordeal, and certain to offer fame, jobs and previously unimaginable riches.

The men made the smooth ascent inside a capsule called Phoenix -- 13 feet tall, barely wider than their shoulders and painted in the white, red and blue of the Chilean flag. It had a door that stuck occasionally, and its wheels needed lubricating at least once, but it worked exactly as planned.

Beginning at midnight Tuesday, and sometimes as quickly as every 30 minutes, the pod was lowered the nearly half-mile to where 700,000 tons of rock collapsed Aug. 5 and entombed the men. Then a miner would strap himself in, make the journey upward and emerge from a manhole into the blinding sun.

The rescue was planned with extreme care. The miners were monitored by video on the way up for any sign of panic. They had oxygen masks, dark glasses to protect their eyes from unfamiliar light and sweaters for the jarring transition from subterranean swelter to chilly desert air.

As they neared the surface, a camera attached to the top of the capsule showed a brilliant white piercing the darkness not unlike what accident survivors describe when they have near-death experiences.

The miners emerged looking healthier than many had expected and even clean-shaven, and at least one, Mario Sepulveda, the second to taste freedom, bounded out and thrust a fist upward like a prizefighter.

"We have prayed to San Lorenzo, the patron saint of miners, and to many other saints so that my brothers Florencio and Renan would come out of the mine all right. It is as if they had been born again," said Priscila Avalos. One of her brothers was the first miner rescued, and the other was due out later in the evening.

As it traveled down and up, down and up, the rescue capsule was not rotating as much inside the 2,041-foot escape shaft as officials expected, allowing for faster trips, and officials said the operation could be complete by sunrise Thursday, if not sooner.

The first man out was Florencio Avalos, who emerged from the missile-like chamber and hugged his sobbing 7-year-old son, his wife and the Chilean president.

No one in recorded history has survived as long trapped underground. For the first 17 days, no one even knew whether they were alive. In the weeks that followed, the world was captivated by their endurance and unity.

Chile exploded in joy and relief at the first, breakthrough rescue just after midnight in the coastal Atacama desert. Car horns sounded in Santiago, the Chilean capital, and school was canceled in the nearby town of Copiapo, where 24 of the miners live.

News channels from North America to Europe and the Middle East carried live coverage. Pope Benedict XVI said in Spanish that he "continues with hope to entrust to God's goodness" the fate of the men. Iran's state English-language Press TV followed events live for a time. North Korean state TV had a crew at the mine.

The images beamed to the world were extraordinary: Grainy footage from beneath the earth showed each miner climbing into capsule, then disappearing upward through an opening. Then a camera showed the pod steadily rising through the dark, smooth-walled tunnel.

Most of the men emerged clean-shaven. Crews had lowered packages dubbed "palomas," Spanish for carrier pigeons, with food and medicine for the weeks underground, and in the days before rescue they were sent razors and shaving cream.

The entire rescue operation was meticulously choreographed. No expense was spared in bringing in topflight drillers and equipment -- and boring three separate holes into the copper and gold mine.

Mining is Chile's lifeblood, providing 40 percent of state earnings, and Pinera put his mining minister and the operations chief of state-owned Codelco, the country's biggest company, in charge of the rescue.

It went so well that its managers abandoned a plan to restrict images of the rescue. A huge Chilean flag that was to obscure the hole from view was moved aside so the hundreds of cameras perched on a hill above could record images that state TV also fed live.

That included the surreal moment when the capsule dropped for the first time into the chamber, where the bare-chested miners, most stripped down to shorts because of the underground heat, mobbed the rescuer who emerged to serve as their guide to freedom.

"This rescue operation has been so marvelous, so clean, so emotional that there was no reason not to allow the eyes of the world -- which have been watching this operation so closely -- to see it," a beaming Pinera told a news conference after Avalos was brought to the surface.

The operation started just before midnight, when a Codelco rescuer made the sign of the cross and was lowered to the trapped men. A navy paramedic went down after Avalos came up -- a surprise improvisation as officials had said the two would go down to oversee the miners' ascent before the first went up.

Engineers inserted steel piping at the top of the shaft, which is angled 11 degrees off vertical before plunging like a waterfall. Drillers had to curve the shaft to pass through "virgin" rock, narrowly avoiding collapsed areas and underground open spaces in the overexploited mine, which had operated since 1885.

In Washington, President Barack Obama said the rescue had "inspired the world." The crews included a team from Center Rock Inc. of Berlin, Pa., that built and managed the piston-driven hammers that pounded open the hole.

As trying as their time underground was, the miners now face challenges so bewildering that no amount of coaching can fully prepare them. Rejoining a world intensely curious about their ordeal, they have been invited to presidential palaces, to take all-expenses-paid vacations and to appear on countless TV shows. Book and movie deals are pending, along with job offers.

Sepulveda's performance exiting from the shaft appeared to confirm what many Chileans thought when they saw his engaging performances in videos sent up from below -- that he could have a future as a TV personality.

But he tried to quash the idea as he spoke to viewers of Chile's state television channel while sitting with his wife and children shortly after his rescue.

"The only thing I'll ask of you is that you don't treat me as an artist or a journalist, but as a miner," he said. "I was born a miner and I'll die a miner."

So now my point of view. I had seen videos or photos of these men during their time under ground, and they were always waving and happy. Given their circumstances, it seems to me that they depended on the Lord and kept the happiest they could be, because they were alive and healthy. It seemed to me that not one of them was angry or upset, and were especially grateful when they were rescued. I only watched a handful of them being rescued, but for each one I got a little misty-eyed because I felt a sense of relief for them, I was happy that they could be with their families again, and that they were not trapped any longer. It made me grateful for what I have even more, and helped me realize that I need to stay happy and positive even when life's course is not what I thought it would be.