Trapped Chilean Miners Thankful, but Still Struggling

On August 5, 2010, 33 Chilean miners were trapped for nearly 70 days, deep inside a Chilean copper mine. Their struggle inspired many people and won the hearts of thousands. But that was last year. Ray Downs, Christian Post Contributor, reported that, “The 33 Chilean miners who were the focus of the world last year have been all but forgotten.”

Many people believed that the miners’ fame would somehow make their lives easier, however, “many are now living in poverty, unable to find work, and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder,” said Downs.

Jonathan Franklin, an Investigative Journalist who covered the lives of the miners after the rescue in his book, 33 Men, spoke with National Public Radio(NPR) about the struggles the miners were experiencing.

One man, Franklin said, “Started looking at the mouth of the mine, he started crying. And I said to him, ‘But Victor, you’re out … you survived.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, but my happiness is still inside there.’”

“We were like rock stars. People climbed trees to see us,” said Samuel Avalos, who had only been working at the mine for a few months before the collapse.

Out of the 33 miners, 32 have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Some of them had nightmares, some of them had trouble relating to their children, others were fighting with their wives, one man was building a big wall around his house,” Franklin told NPR. “When I speak to these men, they talk about going to the psychiatrist, taking lots and lots of pills, but you get this sense when you talk to them that there’s been no collective or group effort to solve these traumas.”

“Most of us are in the same place with emotional and psychological problems,” said Jimmy Sánchez, 20, a miner from the incident. “It was the fear that we would never again see our families, that we were going to die. We just can’t shake those memories.”

Esteban Rojas, one of the miners rescued from the mine collapse, said that the miners are thankful to everyone who saved them and to everyone who followed the story on television. “We will never get tired of saying thank you to people,” Rojas said. “Even when we die we will still need to say thank you. We will never say thank you enough.”