Happy, Exhausted Miners Face New Challenges

(Oct. 14) -- As the 33 Chilean miners rescued this week reunite with loved ones and gulp fresh air for the first time in 69 days, attention is turning to how these lucky survivors will handle their new status as folk heroes.

There's also the question of what will happen to Camp Hope, the cluster of tents in the Atacama desert that captured the world's attention -- and hearts -- for more than two months. Workers are striking down the camp today and relatives are collecting their belongings from the spot where they kept vigil as close to the trapped miners as they could get -- 2,000 feet above them.

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera paid a visit today to the miners at Copiapo Hospital and promised a review of safety and working conditions in the nation's mines, Bloomberg reported.

"Never again in our country will we allow workers to toil in conditions as unsafe and inhumane as those in the San Jose mine," he said. "We'll never ever forget the lesson the San Jose mine taught us."

New jobs, free vacations, presidential invitations and movie and book deals await the miners when they're released from the hospital, which could be as early as today. Rescuers have tried to prepare them for their newfound fame. Those relative riches -- for miners who typically make $1,600 a month -- are well-deserved but could prove difficult to handle.

Praised for their perseverance and showered with gifts, the miners have weeks of festivities ahead of them, including weddings postponed during their captivity underground and joyful first meetings with infants born during that time. But experts warn there's likely to be a reality check after all the hype, and doctors are monitoring the miners' psychological well-being.

Mario Sepulveda, the second miner rescued, emerged from the mine shaft giddy and joking with workers. He pumped his fists and jumped up and down in front of reporters, then asked his wife with a smirk, "How's the dog?"

But a doctor at the hospital in Copiapo where the miners are being treated told The Associated Press that Sepulveda recounted an internal "fight with the devil" that he had inside the mine. Dr. Guillermo Swett also said the youngest miner, 19-year-old Jimmy Sanchez, appeared to be having a hard time coping and seemed depressed.

"He spoke very little and didn't seem to connect," Swett told AP.

The sister of the oldest miner, 63-year-old Mario Gomez, said she could tell from his letters that her brother reached a breaking point days before his rescue on Wednesday.

"He said, 'They needed to get us out right away,'" Eva Gomez told The New York Times. When her brother surfaced on Wednesday, he dropped to his knees in prayer and was later hospitalized with pneumonia.

At least one of the miners faces some romantic headaches as well. Yonni Barrios' personal life exploded while he was deep underground, when it was discovered that he had both a wife and a mistress. The 50-year-old miner asked both women to be on hand to greet him, but his wife refused. The mistress, Susana Valenzuela, showed up and wrapped her arms around him as he emerged from the mine.

"He has another companion," his wife of 28 years, Marta Salinas, told reporters. "I'm happy for him, and if he remakes his life, good for him."

An expert from Chile's state copper company, Manuel Gonzales, was the first rescuer to be lowered down into the mine shaft late Tuesday at the start of the relief operation, and the last to come back up a day later after all the miners were safe. Even as confetti and champagne corks flew atop the mine last night, Gonzales immediately brought up the topic of mine safety with Chilean President Sebastian Pinera.

"I hope we have learned from [the accident] and that Chilean mining will be different," he told his president, according to CNN. "I hope that things will be done correctly ... especially dealing with small mining concerns -- that things be done right. This is what I want."

A long investigation is already under way to probe what prompted 700,000 tons of rock to collapse the San Jose mine on Aug. 5, trapping the 33 men. Top government regulators have been fired and at least 18 smaller mines closed for safety violations. Pinera acknowledged that the mine "never should have functioned as it was functioning. It had a long history of violations."

It's also a political issue for Pinera, whose country gets 40 percent of its earnings from the mining industry. The conditions that allowed the mine to collapse "will not go unpunished," said Pinera, who is Chile's first center-right leader in a generation.

The San Esteban company, which owns the collapsed mine, is being sued by 27 of the 33 miners' families, as well as by another miner who lost his leg a month before the collapse, when a rock fell on him.

"I want to announce to the Chilean workers and the employers that we are going to make a new pact in which the life, dignity and protection of workers will be the focus of government concern," the president said.

The Chilean miners' rescue is likely to spotlight mining safety around the world, particularly in China, where an estimated 1,500 workers die in mining accidents each year. Chinese state media aired extensive coverage of the Chile rescue, surprisingly unworried about comparisons to similar incidents that have ended with fatalities in China. The Xinhua state news agency called the Chile rescue "a miracle," and People's Daily, the Communist Party newspaper, boasted that "a heavy crane employed on the scene was made in China," The New York Times reported.

For the freed miners' relatives, their vigil in at Camp Hope is finally over. But it's unclear what will become of the camp, which began as a cluster of worried families and ended up absorbing more than 2,000 foreign media and TV crews. The place became a symbol of hope that no one would give up on the miners. No one did.

President Barack Obama acknowledged that Camp Hope reserved a place in the hearts of people around the word, not just among those 33 miners and their families.

"The whole world watched the scene at Camp Esperanza as the first miner was lifted out from under more than 2,000 feet of rock and then embraced by his young son and family," Obama said Wednesday at the White House. "And the tears they shed after so much time apart expressed not only their own relief, not only their own joy, but the joy of people everywhere. It was a thrilling moment."