NASA team in Chile to help trapped miners

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER — A NASA medical team traveled to Chile last week to advise government officials on improving the health and morale of 33 men trapped half a mile underground in a collapsed copper mine.

Since the San Jose mine near Copiapo collapsed Aug. 5, rescue workers have sent an iPod, books, razors and shave cream among necessary food and medicine to the men.

The men need activities that will occupy their time and a sense of purposeful work, NASA psychologist Albert Holland said.

The men had organized into groups, established a hierarchy and divvied jobs by the time rescuers reached the miners by drilling a 6-inch-wide tunnel.

“It’s important for people to have meaningful work to do,” Holland said. “Part of their meaningful work is to continue maintaining machinery in the mine and preparing for their rescue.”

Holland recommended officials use a lighting system to mimic daylight hours for the miners, which sustains a balanced sleep cycle and mood, Holland said.

Team members spoke with the men through communication lines set up in three tunnels and said the miners’ spirits were high.

Chilean officials have nicknamed three 6-inch steel-lined wide holes that link the miners to the world above ground “palomas,” or doves in Spanish, Dr. Mike Duncan, deputy chief medical officer at Johnson Space Center, said.

Aid workers above ground deliver anything that will fit in tubes to the miners, including food, medicine, clothes and hygiene products.

The team stressed to Chilean officials the real work begins once crews rescue the miners, Duncan said.

Chilean officials had not considered how difficult life post-rescue will be for the miners, Duncan said.

“They will have to be ready to provide the men rehabilitation and recovery,” Duncan said. “When the miners come out, they will have a certain celebrity status. There will be a lot of pressure put on them by society and the media.”

For more than two weeks, the miners rationed food to a tablespoon of tuna and an inch of milk in a cup every other day before rescuers reached them.

Based on urine samples the men sent back to the surface, some miners showed signs of muscle breakdown, which can occur during starvation, Dr. James Polk, with NASA, said.

Miners who showed signs of muscular breakdown were sent more food.

Some of the miners requested cigarettes, but given the confined conditions, NASA doctors recommended that tobacco be withheld from the men, Polk said.

The miners also face temperatures greater than 90 degrees and high humidity, which can cause fungal infections and skin breakdown, he said.

Workers had drilled a vertical hole 40 meters deep by Saturday, but the work is slow, Duncan said. It might take up to four months to reach the miners, Chilean officials have said.

In the meantime, optical fiber communication lines will be set up so family members can have video conferences with miners.

“We have to expect they will have their ups and downs,” Holland said. “They should be allowed to go through the emotions and focus on not making a big deal about small things.”