OT: Last man up!

AMEN! Vivi los Chilenos! They have the right to be proud. let them have a day of national celebration and prayer. And Luis Urzua deserves a medal for his courage, IMHO.

Alex

What an incredible feat! I was very fearful something dreadful would happen, it's wonderful that all are up and safe.

DS was home yesterday, so we had 2-3 TVs on all day as we moved from room to room, so we wouldn't miss any of the action. We were mesmerized by the courage of all the rescuers, the families and the miners themselves. It was certainly an extra ordinary feat.

Emily

And to realize that NASA came up with the rescue concept....BRAVO

At least those millions/billions of dollars weren't wasted

Ever time I use my computer, log onto this "internet thingy", use my calculator, etc., etc., etc. I know the money was very well spent.

Whenever I hear about a mining accident on TV, I can't help feeling with the poor sods. After all, I was raised in a coal mining area; here in Dortmund are many suburbian cemetaries that hold monuments for those lost in mining desasters. My great-grandfather was a metalworker for one of the mines around here. And every school kid in our region visits at least once the Mining Museum in Bochum; it has an old shaft tower you can get up on (as a kid I witnessed how they disassembled it from a mining shaft where a train into the city used to pass), and a small mine where you get a feeling for how it is down there. Of course, since this mine is only a few meters below the surface it's rather cold in it, and not as hot as in a real mine. There they will show you the 'Dahlbusch Bomb', a rescuing device similar to the one used in Chile which was first used in the Lengede desaster in the 1960s, and I never could go by that one without getting tears to my eyes. In that desaster, they rescued eleven men, but another 29 were killed. The bodies of

28 of them were found later when they cleared up the mine, and of these, three must have lived at least another two weeks, judging by the growth of their beards. That gives me the creeps; dying down there unnoticed while the world is cheering for the ones rescued under the glare of tv cameras. That those guys in Chile got out allright, and all of them, is a real miracle.

U.