Comments | shadowspin: WOOOOHOOOO!!

shadowspin

WOOOOHOOOO!!

May 09, 2006 05:35

Have been watching on tenterhooks the rescue operation for the last 9 days of the two miners trapped down the mine in Beaconsfield Tasmania since a massive rockfall on ANZAC Day (25th April) - 14 days ago. They were not found for 5 days, and it's taken this long to get through to them due to the unstable situation 1km underground ( Read more... )

Comments 21

cocoajava May 8 2006, 20:01:41 UTC

EXCELLENT NEWS!!!!!

shadowspin May 8 2006, 20:11:12 UTC

And best part? They were able to walk out of the lift together and move their tags from the 'red' to the 'green' side of the pegboard. It's what they really wanted to do, to walk out, and they've just been meeting with their wives and family and workmates.

It's amazing, you couldn't pick them from any of the other miners/rescuers.

cocoajava May 8 2006, 20:13:26 UTC

That's just amazing, and is putting a smile on my face over here. That moving the tags thing.... that's just somehow very, very touching.

shadowspin May 8 2006, 20:19:07 UTC

Yeah, they had the camera trained on it, and that area around it, where the lift comes up from underground, and they explained what it's for. A group of 5 rescuers came up and all automatically went to it and shifted their tags from the red on the right, to the green on the left, as that's drummed into them, and part of the procedure for every miner going down etc. So the men were really adamant about walking out.

And they did.

They're in ambulances now, being taken to hospital to be checked over, and it's still to be seen if they'll go to the funeral of Larry Knight this afternoon.

naughty_tess May 8 2006, 22:16:38 UTC

They were talking about this on the radio today. I'm really glad to hear those guys got out!

shadowspin May 8 2006, 22:29:04 UTC

It's been an amazing saga - and the stories that are coming out. Some of the miners are now talking about it, one of them who was one of the 14 who escaped when it happened (was on the shift Larry Knight was on), and another who was down there when they heard the men were actually alive.

It's been amazing.

And the local club opened up and has been serving free beer all morning (as in started when they came out!) as the local businesses have put the money on the bar.

naughty_tess May 8 2006, 22:38:06 UTC

Hehe, that's cool. :) I'm glad it didn't turn out the way our biggest mining disaster did, with them announcing all of them were alive only to find out only one of them was.

shadowspin May 8 2006, 22:46:03 UTC

Yeah, they've handled this pretty well. And they actually talked to the men, so knew they were alive and not injured. In fact they were blasting when one of the crew heard the guys yelling "Hey! Stop! We're here!" He managed to scramble through a small area that meant he could talk to them. That was Sunday a week ago, and since then everything changed. They immediately flew in specialist explosives experts, one who was on this morning talking about what it took - over 60 explosives, which are specialist explosive. Seems he was able to blast up to 300mm from the men! He didn't realise how close he was, the survey guys just kept him going until they said, 'OK, that's close enough.'

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