e-cigarette review NEWS: Hero's welcome for first rescued Chilean miners

Friday, October 15, 2010

Hero's welcome for first rescued Chilean miners

Chile's president meets the miners in hospital and challenges them to a football match
The first of the 33 Chilean miners rescued after spending 69 days trapped underground have arrived home.
Three miners were given an enthusiastic welcome by neighbours and friends following their release from hospital late on Thursday.
Doctors said all the miners had responded well to treatment and many more of them would go home on Friday.

Chile's Trapped Miners

Earlier President Sebastian Pinera visited them and promised to stamp out "inhuman" working conditions in Chile.
Dr Jorge Montes, deputy medical director at the Copiapo hospital which has been treating the men, said the three who left would be allowed to carry out physical activity and would need sunglasses only if they were exposed to intense light.
However, he warned that "the psychological condition of the patients is something we cannot predict".
'Radical change'
One of the three, Edison Pena - covered in confetti and thronged by neighbours - described his homecoming as "very beautiful". "I thought I would never return," he said.
Rescued miner Carlos Mamani (C), from Bolivia, after his release from hospital, speaks to reporters outside his home in Copiapo - 14 October 2010 Miner Carlos Mamani (C) thanked the Chilean people
Another Juan Illanes, 52, told cheering friends and neighbours: "This is really incredible. It hasn't sunk in."
Still wearing the dark sunglasses he and his fellow miners were given to protect their eyesight, he said being trapped for weeks had taken him "to the limit".
The third, Bolivian Carlos Mamani, was the only foreigner among the 33. Speaking outside his home, the 24-year-old thanked "all the Chilean people who behaved so well in our rescue. Long live Chile! Long live Bolivia!"
Some of the men have been given dental surgery and two have the lung disease, silicosis: Mario Sepulveda, the second miner to have been rescued, and Mario Gomez, 63, who is on a course of antibiotics for pneumonia.
The men were hauled to the surface one at a time in a complicated and dramatic operation that began late on Tuesday and took about 22 hours from the time the first miner was brought up.
They were winched up a narrow shaft in a metal capsule from where they had been trapped 625m (2,050 feet) below ground since the mine partially collapsed on 5 August.
Speaking from hospital less than 24 hours after his rescue, miner Richard Villarroel described the trip in the capsule as "calm".
"Everything was well-prepared. I came up listening to music."
He and the 32 other miners have set a world record for surviving the longest time trapped underground.
President Pinera met the miners in the hospital and promised a review that would lead to a "very radical change" affecting the health and safety of workers in mining as well as the transport, fishing and construction industries.
He said it was impossible to guarantee that Chile would never face such an accident in the future.
"But we can guarantee one thing: never again in our country will we allow working in conditions so inhuman and so unsafe as happened in the San Jose mine and many other places in our country."
He told the miners there will be a big celebration for them on 25 October, in the capital, Santiago.
He also invited them for a game of football the same day against the officials who had helped rescue them.
Mr Pinera joked that the winners would be allowed to live at the presidential palace, La Moneda, while the losers would have to go back down the mine.
Offers
The miners survived the first 17 days of their ordeal by eking out rations that were meant to last just a few days before rescuers found them via a probe lowered down a bore hole about the width of a grapefruit.
The last rescued miner, Luis Urzua, arrives at hospital in Copiapo - 14 October 2010 There has been intense international media scrutiny of the rescued miners
Food and other supplies were lowered to the men while they waited for a larger shaft to be drilled for their rescue.
Now the men are safe, thoughts have turned to their emotional wellbeing.
An insight into how the miners are adjusting to life above ground has come from a diary written for the BBC by the three children of Omar Reygadas, the 17th to be freed.
One of the children, Ximena, has described how her father has become so pale after his 69 days underground that he resembles the cartoon ghost, Casper.
"In general, he's in good spirits. But then when he remembers the first few days after the accident, he starts crying, he gets very upset," she wrote.
"But then he pulls himself together and his spirits are high once more."
The Chilean government has promised to care for the miners for at least six months.
Offers and invitations to the men have begun to pour in.
European football clubs Manchester United and Real Madrid have invited the 33 to watch them play and they have also received offers of holidays and TV appearances.
They are also expected to receive offers of jobs, advertising deals and book and movie contracts to tell their extraordinary stories.

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