UnNews:Four Chilean miners refuse to come out

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14 October 2010

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SAN JOSÉ MINE, Chile -- Four of the 33 miners who have been trapped in this Chilean mine for over two months have refused the offer of rescue.

The others were quickly and efficiently brought to the surface through 2,000 feet of solid rock on Wednesday, in an all-day operation carried on worldwide television, although annoyingly free of gore and mishaps.

"Welcome to life," Chilean President Sebastián Piñera told Victor Segvia, the 15th miner out, sort of as though Mr. Piñera were personally responsible for life. Similarly, U.S. President Barack Obama praised the American onlookers, and the commercial sponsors of the broadcast, proving equally adept at taking credit for things in which he played no role as he has in the past for apologizing for things in which he played no role.

The miners emerged, remarkably clean-shaven, and with various commercial endorsements taped to their washed and pressed shirts. However, four miners refused to come to the surface.

Miner Mario Gómez, who suffers from a work-related lung disease for which the company never treated him until the whole world started to pay rapt attention, disliked the social workers who came down the rescue shaft before the miners were lifted out, refused to drink the gentle tranquilizer or don the sunglasses administered to the other miners before their half-mile ride in the escape capsule to the bright surface, and says he'll do just fine in the collapsed mine.

Jimmy Sánchez, 19 years old and a father of nine, refused to emerge as both a wife and a mistress awaited him on the surface and things were going to get awkward. His wife, Lilianett Ramírez, feared arrest for "having sex with a miner," a pun that it is unimaginably difficult to make in Spanish.

Franklin Lobos, who played for the national soccer team in the 1980s, also refused to come up the rescue shaft. "I want to go out on top," he told reporters. "I want you to remember me as I was."

Shift foreman Luis Urzua, although honorably staying underground until his entire crew was rescued, also refused to emerge. He was certain that the mining company would stand on technicalities to avoid paying them for the 69 days they were imprisoned underground.

Sources

• Michael Warren "Chile mine rescue nearly complete; all but 2 out" Associated Press, October 13, 2010