Chile Trapped Miners to Get Survival Kit Used in Iraq
Andres Llarena, a Chilean Navy officer
Matt Craze/Bloomberg
Andres Llarena, a Chilean Navy officer, is assigned to the rescue of the thirty-three workers trapped in a mine in northern Chile.
Andres Llarena, a Chilean Navy officer, is assigned to the rescue of the thirty-three workers trapped in a mine in northern Chile. Photographer: Matt Craze/Bloomberg
Chile Trapped Miners to Get Survival Kit Used in Iraq
Matt Craze/Bloomberg
A survival kit which will be delivered to the trapped miners in northern Chile.
A survival kit which will be delivered to the trapped miners in northern Chile. Photographer: Matt Craze/Bloomberg
Thirty-three workers trapped in an underground mine in northern Chile for more than a month will receive survival kits that U.S. and British troops relied on during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, a Chilean Navy officer assigned to the rescue said.
The kits, which include tourniquets and bone injection guns, will be passed down to the men via 700-meter (2,300-feet) drill holes less than 4 inches wide, Andres Llarena, 45, said yesterday in an interview at the mine site.
“Most of the things have been designed coming out of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts,” he said. “This is going to be the first time we send them medical material to help themselves react better if anything bad happens.”
Chile’s Navy and the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration are among organizations and companies advising on what is the world’s longest mine rescue. The miners have been trapped in the San Jose copper and gold mine in the Atacama Desert since an Aug. 5 cave-in blocked the access. President Sebastian Pinera said the men will be home by Christmas.
Llarena, who just received the supplies, will begin training rescue teams and the miners via a videoconferencing system this week, he said. Rescue teams need to be the first to learn how to use the equipment as they are in contact with the trapped miners 24 hours a day, Llarena said.
Haiti Troops
Chilean peacekeeping troops carry the kits in Haiti after receiving advice from the U.K. and the U.S., he said.
They include aluminum bandages used to support fractured bones devised by SAM Medical Products, a company set up by Dr. Sam Scheinberg who treated soldiers in the Vietnam War. The same bandages are used by NASA astronauts and on hiking expeditions in the Himalayas, according to the Wilsonville, Oregon-based company’s website.
The bone injection gun, a product of Houston-based PerSys Group, has a spring-loaded needle that can inject fluids into the bone and offer similar treatment to intravenous infusion that can save lives, the company says on its website.
Some of the 33 trapped miners in Chile are being trained to help the group’s designated first-aider who had previous medical training, Llarena said.
“There’s no way we can operate on them, so we have to deal with that situation either remotely or through medication,” said Llarena, who has worked as ship doctor on a Type 22 Frigate that Chile’s Navy purchased from the U.K. in 2003. “I’m going to be here until the last of them gets out of the hole.”
Longest Rescue
San Jose is the longest mine rescue effort, surpassing the 25 days two Chinese miners spent in an underground mine in 2009.
Melbourne-based BHP Billiton Ltd. and Phoenix-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., which also mine for copper in Chile, are part of the rescue team. Chile provides a third of the world’s copper.
A drill, described as the rescuers “Plan B,” reached a depth of 270 meters yesterday,Pinera told reporters at the El Teniente mine site in central Chile. The rescuers’ “Plan A” drill reached 141 meters and a larger oil drill, “Plan C,” is being installed at the mine site, he said.
“The whole world has its eyes on Chile,” Pinera said. “This is probably one of the most difficult, challenging and risky rescue operations in the history of humanity.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Craze in Santiago at mcraze@bloomberg.net
Rate These Stories
Rate this Page