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5 Things That Crossed My Mind When I Heard About The Chilean Mine Collapse

So this morning I rolled out of bed and grabbed my iPad for what has become my morning ritual of reading the latest news before I head off to the office. As I laid under a mountain of covers, cup of coffee at the ready, one article in particular jumped off the page and literally took my breath away.

“Chilean Miners Found Alive – But Rescue Will Take Four Months”

It’s funny because people always ask me, “Chad, why didn’t you build a basement?” or “Chad, why won’t you go into underground mines?”

“Well, mainly because… SHIT LIKE THIS HAPPENS!”

I can’t imagine what it must be like to be trapped for 17 days with nary a clue of what’s going on topside and literally just READING about it caused me to throw the covers off and shout obscenities in my best Chilean accent.

So let’s recap some of what we know and then I’ll get to my burning questions. First off, there’s 33 sweaty dudes in a “safety area” which is presumed to be similar to a shipping container with about two weeks of food, water, some chemicals that scrub CO2, and apparently a vehicle with a battery of some sort parked just outside the coffin that is now their home. At least this would be the case if the mine we’re in the US. This one is in Chile. If I just HAD to be trapped in a mine, guess which country I’d want that mine to be in?

For 17 days, these 33 men have hung out in near-darkness, recharging their helmet lights off the vehicle’s battery, and listening as workers 2300 feet above-ground drill 5 inch diameter holes thousands of feet into the earth above and around them, seven freaking times, trying to hit the spot right above their location and make “contact”. Let me say that another way. For 17 days, these guys have sat a half-mile deep in a collapsed mine listening to drills boring all around them throughout the day and night until finally – on the eighth attempt – a hole opens above them.

“We’re saved!!”, they probably thought. But no, they’re not… not even close. In fact, they will have to wait, at best, another FOUR months for the authorities to drill a hole large enough to pull them out one at a time. Think about that. Better yet, don’t.

They quickly scribble a note saying that all 33 of them are alive and hunky dory inside their tomb shelter and attach it to the probe lowered into the hole from above which, to give you an even more gruesome idea of how far down they are, takes an hour to lower to the depth these men are trapped at. But I digress…

Some techie asshole topside then gets the bright idea to lower a camera down the hole, presumably, so that we can all have nightmares while the head of recruitment for every mining company starts rocking back in forth at his desk muttering safety procedures to himself. I leaned forward… I am intrigued. We are eventually greeted with images of the men with their shirts off baking in the 90-96 degree temperatures, some even with their helmet lights turned on which really gives me the warm and fuzzies, let me tell you. I’m sure the safety shelter is at this time all abuzz with euphoria at the thought of finally being pulled out of their hell hole. But we know the truth. As of this moment, they still don’t know it.

In a cruel twist of coincidence, the entire world has spent the summer becoming a certifiable expert on underwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. So now everybody has an opinion… lucky me.

“Half a mile? That shit takes about two weeks, dude.”

But, you see, it doesn’t. They’re not drilling through sea floor. They’re drilling through rock. Thousands of feet of rocky rock and the drills that pull off this feat can – in top efficiency, if they could go 24/7 – drill about three meters a day.

“Well if they’re at 700 meters, then we’ll have them out in a hair over two months, not four months.”

Excepting the fact that two months is technically an improvement on the earlier four month sentence, now’s the part where you find out that drills don’t run at peak efficiency through rock 24/7. They break. Often. And they run the risk of collapsing the mine further. And that’s when you remember that there’s a bunch of living humans directly underneath in an already-collapsed mine that you’re drilling into and well… you see where this is going. Four months folks. Start the clock and let’s start with the 5 Things That Crossed My Mind When I Heard About The Chilean Mine Collapse.

1. 33 X (1 + 2) = ???
I’ve been to weddings and concerts countless times in my life. What do these have in common with people trapped in underground mines? Lots of folks needing to do ones and twos and their personal, porcelain thrones nowhere to be seen. Sure, the fact that this was the first thing that popped up in my mind probably says a lot about me and then that I went so far as to create an equation to avoid writing the word “poop” is either brilliant or disturbing, but whatever. You’d have thought about it eventually, I’ve just saved you some time.

A single pile of feces is repulsive. Thirty-three piles of feces requires a thesaurus. And that’s just a single day. They’ve got 119 to go after that. The good news – if it can be said – is that they haven’t eaten in weeks so we’re probably OK on this front for now, but once food starts going down this hole, look for this to rear it’s ugly turtle head.

2. Did I Ever Tell You About The Time….
I can’t board a single plane without having the blowhard next to me ask me where I’m from and what I do for a living. I’ve taken to just making shit up and then seeing if I can keep the lie going for the duration of the flight. You try flying to Washington, D.C. next to a man who thinks you’re a “Botox Specialist”. Gets even harder when said man is a plastic surgeon… on his way to DC for a plastic surgery conference, no less. It’s harder than you think.

Now imagine being buried alive in a mine with 33 guys from work while everyone tells the same stories over and over to keep from losing their minds. Hell, the guys in my office tell the same stories over and over now and I get to go home at 5:30. What if we all had to sit here for four months?

“Hey Victor! Remember the time we–”

“–Yes, Tony. I think you told me that story for the eight-hundredth time about an hour ago. Now shut the $&%@ up.”

3. Roll Call Will Be Mandatory
33 people is a lot of people to keep track of. Ask a school teacher on a field trip. You’re bound to miss one every now and again, it’s just a statistical fact. At least those field trips aren’t in the blackest, darkest hole you can imagine. But what if one day Victor doesn’t pipe up when his name is called? What if that’s because Victor finally realized that three months into this ordeal, death was an upgrade to this particular situation and passed in the night?

How would the presence of a dead body be dealt with in a confined, moist, humid, dark space? I’m telling you, this is how my mind works and now you should understand why some view me as “eccentric”.

4. Exit In An Orderly Fashion
So let’s fast forward four months. We have the first government run operation in the history of the world to be completed on time and our trapped miners have managed to stay alive and not go completely bat shit crazy. The bigger drill breaks flawlessly through the rock, into the living area where 33 miners all look at each other in relief and then cheer in celebration. The men on the top side lower down a rescue basket which will be used to pull the men up one at a time.

My question is simple… who determines the order that the men go up? Think about this for a second. Nobody volunteers to be the first one to try out that zip line your crazy uncle hung in the backyard, right? But if you had been underground for four months, could you wait while 5, 10, 20, 32 people all went up before you? And don’t forget, it took an hour to get a camera down this hole. Let’s be optimistic and say it takes two hours to get a person back up the hole and then an hour to lower the basket back down. That means the first guy out will have been working on his tan for about four days before the last guy gets out. But then again, the first guy had the balls to be “the first guy” so he deserves something, right?

Which leads you to the inevitable last part of this thought process. Not only has the last guy watched for four days as everyone but himself was pulled out of the tube. No, the moment the 32nd guy begins his ascent, number 33 gets to sit alone in this tomb he’s called home for another three hours before finally getting his turn to exit.

Personally, I’d try to be about third because I like to see a concept proved a couple times before I’m all in.

5. All Food Down The Rescue Tube Shall Be Low-Carb
The moment I heard they were digging but one hole of a fixed width about 40 inches around, I admit that this one was near the top of my “WTF?!?” list of thoughts that crossed my mind. What if Victor was a fan of the breads and pastas when he went in? What if four months of near-starvation reduced his width to only 42 inches? What will they do with Victor or any of the men if they don’t fit up the hole? Surely they can’t wait another four months to drill a hole for the fatties?

And, what the hell, one last thought and I have to quit. Imagine if you were 39 inches wide and had to take a two hour tube ride up a 40 inch hole to freedom?

I can say, without hesitation, that I will be following this very closely over the next few months and I hope the top drilling companies in the world send their experts to find a way to resolve this quickly. The nerd side of me wishes Steve Jobs would send some iPads down this hole (would have to be the rumored 7″ version though! With FaceTime? Sweet!) and we get these guys some wi-fi and let them live blog because this is the most insane shit I’ve ever seen and I most definitely will NOT be watching the inevitable movie that comes out based on this… 3D or not.