Now that the Chilean miners have been rescued after being trapped underground for months the limelight will begin to shift to the men who rescued them. Two were from a company in Colorado. Jeff Hart was called away from drilling for water in Afghanistan and stayed at the controls for nearly 33 straight days until he broke through to the men far below.
There were NASA doctors, whose forte was experience in treating men in confined, isolated conditions. “And the design of the rescue pod is the brainchild of NASA engineer Clinton Cragg. Cragg drew on his experience as a former submarine captain in the Navy and directed a team of 20 to conceive of a small 13- foot-long tube to carry the miners one at a time to the surface.”
Their dramatic efforts recall events 80 years ago, when another team made an unprecedented effort to bring rescue other men who would normally been given up for lost. Coincidentally, they were also 33 in number. And it also involved the use of a novel pod. The rescue of the crew of USS Squalus in the first successful use of a rescue chamber developed by Charles “Swede” Momsen. It was as dramatic in its own way as the Chilean rescue.
The Squalus sank in 240 feet of water off the Isle of Shoals. The trapped crew floated a red flare to the surface to signal for help, which brought salvage ships to a surface buoy they would not otherwise have found. “This position was 4-3/4 miles to the westward from the reported diving position of the SQUALUS and in nearly the opposite direction from her reported diving course.”
“What is your trouble?” the rescuers asked over the buoy telephone line. But no sooner had Captain Naquin come on the line to request air hoses to blow the water out of his flooded boat than the line parted. Without a line to lead them down to the stricken submarine the rescuers dragged the sea bottom with anchors to find the Squalus. Just then, in a moment to rank with Hart’s call to come to Chile, a four man team belonging to the Navy’s Experimental Diving Unit, got a call in Washington DC to bring their rescue chamber, which if it could be attached to the Squalus, might rescue the men trapped within.
But a line had to be run down to the Squalus first. Possibly the most crucial act was the attachment by a salvage diver of a cable to guide the rescue chamber down.
At 1014, the first diver, Martin C. Sibitzky, B.M. 1c, USN, was put over the side, reporting himself on the deck of the SQUALUS at 1017. The descending line used was the buoy line which had been attached to the drag anchor by the PENACOOK, and this line was fortunately discovered by the diver to be only about 6 feet aft of the forward torpedo room hatch, leading over the port rail near the stub mast. At 1028 the rescue chamber downhaul wire was shackled to the descending line and lowered to the diver, who shackled it to the hatch at 1039, and started coming up, being placed in the decompression chamber at 1124.
The extremely skillful work of this first diver resulted in marked expedition of the whole rescue operation and contributed greatly to its ultimate success. In addition to shackling on the downhaul wire it was necessary for him to clear the bight of the marker buoy line, which lay across the hatch, and was still fouled somewhere over the side. Had this buoy line been allowed to remain, it would have endangered rescue chamber operations by possibly fouling the downhaul or preventing a tight seal on the hatch.
Like the Chilean miners, the sailors had to be rescued in shifts. The captain came up last. Then came the excruciating decision to end the rescue, a move which required ascertaining that no one was alive in the flooded after torpedo room. The only way to do was to try and attach the rescue chamber to the torpedo room. Again, divers were sent down. How great was the risk is shown by what happened next. “The first and second divers sent down failed to attach the wire due to fouling of lines and great depth of water, but the third diver was successful at 1602 and was back in the decompression chamber at 1657.”
At 1719 the rescue chamber commenced descent, and at 1745 reached the submarine. It was necessary in this operation to equalize the pressure in the chamber with that of the sea in order to enable the submarine hatch to be opened without flooding the chamber. This was done, and upon cracking the submarine hatch, water commenced to flood into the chamber from the torpedo room, proving that the after torpedo room was flooded. The submarine hatch was secured, and the rescue chamber started up, using the usual decompression schedule during the ascent because the operators had been subjected to full sea pressure. At 2107 the rescue chamber was landed on deck. Badders, W., C.M.M., U.S.N., was in charge of the chamber in this operation, and Mihalowski, J., T.M.1c. was his assistant. These men were fully aware of the great danger involved. If they became incapacitated, there was no way in which they could be rescued, as the chamber could not be entered from the outside. Considering all facts, it is felt that these men accepted the greatest personal risk of any during the entire rescue operations, and performed their duties in accordance with the highest traditions of the service.
For their extraordinary efforts in the rescue four Navy divers were awarded the Medal of Honor, William Baddars, Orson Crandall, James McDonald and John Mihalowski.
embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt
Captain Naquin died in 1989. On his gravestone at Arlington are a testimonial to the other heroes, the crew of the Squalus itself. In those hours of waiting, they behaved as some men do on the edge of extinction; as if some strange and luminous person were ready to emerge from the fragile human breast.
My Officers And Men Acted Instinctively And Calmly. There Were No Expressions Of Fear And No Complains Of The Bitter Cold. Never In My Remaining Life Do I Expect To Witness So True An Exemplification Of Comradeship And Brotherly Love. No Fuller Meaning Could Possibly Be Given The Word ‘Shipmate’ Than Was Reflected By Their Acts.
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They just got about their duties…no hesitation…no excuses…
James McDonald, one of those awarded the CMH, was a family friend when I was a child. He had retired from the Navy by then, bought a farm in Potter County, Pennsylvania and lived out his life as a gentleman farmer, until his health began to fail and he sold the farm and moved, with his wife, to a nearby town to finish out his life.
He was a great man, a good friend, and one of the finest story tellers that a young country farm boy could have ever found to listen to. His wife made some of the finest apple pie in Christendom. For those who know what it means, he was a great “square dance caller”.
In the movie, he is the sailor receiving the CMH around his neck.
Wretchard says: as if some strange and luminous person were ready to emerge from the fragile human breast
One of the Chilean miners clearly felt the presence of Another:
“Jimmy Sanchez, one of the 33 Chilean miners who have been trapped for over two months in the San Jose copper-gold mine in the Atacama Desert, would like to make one small correction to all the stories about life in the mine:
‘There are actually 34 of us,’ the nineteen-year-old miner wrote in a letter sent up from the mine on Tuesday, ‘because God has never left us down here.’”
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2010/10/chilean_miner_g.html
H/T: The Anchoress
Both rescue accounts– the Squalus and the Chilean miners– give new meaning to the phrase in the Creed: descensus ad inferos. For– as Cowboy’s reference in the previous thread to the suicide at Harvard reminds us– there are many “on the edge of extinction” from their own despair; who need a visitation from “some strange and luminous person.”
How nice to be able to assist in such significant ways. Good show, lads, both in the seas off New Hampshire and underground in Chile.
Squalus was raised, repaired and re-named Sailfish. She was awarded 9 battle stars for her service in the Pacific during World War Two and was scrapped at Philadelphia in 1948. After her re-naming, she was un-officially known as “Squalfish.” Interesting that the title of the original film misspells her name.
“God has never left us down here.”
That reminds me of Psalm 139:
Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.
‘There are actually 34 of us,’ the nineteen-year-old miner wrote in a letter sent up from the mine on Tuesday, ‘because God has never left us down here.’”
There’s a book called the Third Man Factor which relates how people under great survival stress often feel the presence of an unseen person. This phenomenon, if it exists, has been explained in terms of the Bicameral Mind; as if something inside of us kicks in when we think we are very close to death.
A site summarizes a few of the incidents from the Third Man Factor.
Maybe it is some mental process which helps us survive, the effect of a brain under stress. It is interesting to say, well maybe near death experiences are the same thing. But the one problem with that theory is that mental images which ease a person toward “a bright light” at the moment of dying have no survival enhancing value. The organism which such a phenomenon would solace, dies.
There is a related experience which some of us may have experienced, which the subjective slowing down of time in moments of great danger. Whatever it may turn out to be, people — whether Chilean miners or sailors in a steel coffin — are more interesting than they seem at first glance.
Wretchard,
From the Judeo-Christian perspective a Bicameral Mind is manifested as both the physical and spiritual mind. That something inside of us which kicks in, as Obi-Wan Kenobi said: “from a certain point of view,” is the Spirit of God. Such a Spirit within our minds might just be able to kick in on a regular basis – but of course in a uniquely significant way when we think we are close to death.
I read of a case where an prop-driven airliner was flying from the East to the West coast in the 1950′s. A passenger became ill and needed immediate medical attention. A huge storm front was crossing the country and the only suitable landing place nearby was Salt Lake City, which itself was socked in by a snowstorm.
In those days they used a radio navigational system called the “A-N Range”, where the pilots heard the letter A on Morse Code on one side of the center course, the letter N on the other, and a continuous tone in the middle. The SLT AN range required a letdown into a canyon and was notoriously unreliable in snowstorms.
Descending into the clouds, on course according to the AN Range, the pilot suddenly heard a familiar voice say “Get over to the right!” He knew that voice; it was on old friend of his, a fellow airline pilot. He turned around and saw his friend’s face a few inches away, saying “Dammit! I told you to get over to the right!”
His friend had been dead for years. He immediately moved the airplane over to the right, and soon after broke out of the clouds, the left wing mere feet from the canyon wall.
I suppose such experiences formed the basis for the WWII movie “A Guy Named Joe” and its 1980′s remake “Always.”
I knew the Navy doctor on the Squalus mission, the late Dr. Charles “Chuck” Shilling. Besides knowing him professionally, I interviewed him extensively in about 1980-82 as part of an oral history project concerning doctors involved in the early days of deep-sea diving.
Arguably the most risky part of the mission was the decompression, as the tables then were crude and never really proven for the depths involved.
He was also a good pal of “Swede” Momsen, had an autographed picture in his office, and told some rollicking tales of them in their younger days.
Shilling was quite elderly at the time of the interview though his mind was clear. His health was visibly failing and he passed away just a few years later.
Storm-Rider #9
Such a Spirit within our minds might just be able to kick in on a regular basis – but of course in a uniquely significant way when we think we are close to death.
I wonder whether Wretchard’s “Third Man” phenomenon can apply to situations in which a person does not know they are in danger (so they wouldn’t be feeling survival stress, at least not consciously). I had a strange experience when I was nine years old; I had just gotten off the city bus at its usual stop near my house. To get home I had only one lightly traveled street to cross; my house was at the end of the following block. I had looked both ways before starting across the street (my dad was very safety-conscious and taught me accordingly). There were no cars in sight. I had just taken the first step across Broad Street when I heard a woman telling me to stop and I felt her hand on my arm. So I stopped, just as a speeding car went through a stop sign and made a fast right-hand turn onto Broad Street. If I had walked any further into the intersection I would not be sitting here typing this post. I turned around to thank the woman and there was no one there; not another person, adult or child, anywhere that I could see. It was a clear sunny day, about 3 in the afternoon, so the “third person” could not have been obscured by darkness or bad weather.
I still can’t explain it, but I am grateful for it.
There are two sides to this successful rescue; the miners on one side, and their rescuer government on the other. The miners were bolstered by faith, were determined, tenacious, and well organized by knowledgeable leaders.
Despite any disagreements with its other principles, the government did not fingerpoint; but spearheaded a rescue effort knowing it was the remotest chance in the world. The deepest mine rescue ever attempted, the longest survival underground; Chile led an aggressive program of 3 concurrent plans, all executed in a flawless performance.
The US used to be like that, so what happened? Where’s my country?.
With all the terrible things going on in the world I’m glad this is taking center stage. Viva Chile and their tenacity in hanging in there. The Human Spirit at its finest, it is.
Thank God.
The US used to be like that, so what happened? Where’s my country?.
My entire professional life is spent online with people from the United States. Someone asked me once what distinguished this particular group of individuals from some others I’ve worked with. My instant answer was that “they’re not afraid to fail”. They’re not afraid of falling down, losing the stake, getting egg all over their faces or being laughed at.
Maybe we’ll succeed and maybe we’ll fail. But one thing’s for sure. It was given a try.
To be “can do” means above all, to be willing to fail. Otherwise we are in that other country: cover your ass. In that universe nobody fails. Nobody can be blamed. And if nothing happens, so what? The point is simply that no liability can attach.
The first question anybody asks today is not how do we solve the problem, but who’s fault is it. I wonder where this strange attitude emanates from. But if it grows indefinitely, it will grow like a cancer until we become shrinking violets, confident there are no spirits or Third Persons in the world, yet afraid of our own shadows.
PA Cat 12,
I’ve never experienced a clearly supernatural event. All that I’ve seen thus far is explainable by the laws of science – things and laws which I believe by faith have a supernatural origin. By faith I believe that all men are endowed by their Creator with equal unalienable rights – to life, liberty and creativity in pursuit of happiness – that all men are thereby created in the image of God – since if He lives He is free and is the Great Creator. So, an individual created in the image of God is a miracle which I can see.
Jim Patrick…
You’re looking right at her: the key players and technology were cranked up on the fly by America.
During their performance they stayed in the back round — press wise.
—-
At least this rescue entertains the public while the super-fiasco which is MERS provides no mercy.
On present trends, the banking cartel is going to have its reset button pushed.
At the very least, the bust-out bonuses have to stop. The afflicted institutions are already insolvent.
As the credit pandemic deflates globally, nation after nation is going to have to reset their banks.
If the Republican majority fails to bring the cartel to account they will end up in the wilderness — perhaps like the Whigs.
15
“The first question anybody asks today is not how do we solve the problem, but who’s fault is it. I wonder where this strange attitude emanates from. “—–
Trial Lawyers.
US Medicine, US Business and now the US Military have lawyers in their decision loop and armies of litigants looking sue.
Where’s my country?
Right there at the site of rescue. The technology and expertise involved are direct from the good ole USA.
blert beat me to it. I knew I should have refreshed the page before commenting.
I’m stunned by an irony revealed to me on the USS Squalus Wikipedia page. When she sank off New Hampshire, a vessel named the USS Sculpin located her and helped in the rescue operation. Years later during WWII, the Sculpus torpedoed and sank a Japanese carrier, the Chuyo. But the Japanese had prisoners-of-war onboard the Chuyo, and who would they be other than the captured crew of the very same USS Sculpin which had saved the Squalus years before?
Wretchard #15:
A strongly adhered to requirement in US Military mishap investigations (e.g., aircraft crashes) is that the information collected as part of the “safety” investigation cannot be used for punative action against those responsible. A separate investgtigation is required if someone is to be held responsible and punished, but none of the analysis and conclusions of the safety investigation can be used for that purpose. The reason is simply that people should not fear that what information they provide in the course of figuring out what went wrong will be used against them.
Following the completion of the safety investigation, a limited number of copies of the mishap report is sent out to selected and carefully defined list of organizations. Or that is the way it used to be.
But around 1981 there were aggressive attempts by civilian courts to secure copies of the mishap reports for use in lawsuits. A celebrated example was the USAF widow wife who sought to sue General Dynamics because of faulty wiring in F-16′s; she was even featured on 60 Minutes.
As a result, in 1981 the USAF Safety Center ordered ALL mishap reports held outside of the Safety Center iself to be destroyed. They feared that the more copies that were out there the greater the chance that some judge would issue an order to release the report to the litigants. Of course, thsi also prevented the information about what went wrong being distributed as well. And worst of all, they even applied this rule to USAF space launches, in which there was essentially no chance of litigation; as in many things military, one size fits all.
So it is the lawyers. It is their clients. It is the media. It is the politicians playing to all of them. And it is bueaucratic response to all of that.
Miners
http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/11/coaltown.htm
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0002142
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-EiwiiAh68
Wretchard said;
“The first question anybody asks today is not how do we solve the problem, but who’s fault is it. I wonder where this strange attitude emanates from. But if it grows indefinitely, it will grow like a cancer until we become shrinking violets, confident there are no spirits or Third Persons in the world, yet afraid of our own shadows”
I would blame tort lawyers and a sadly large group of people that are looking to get something for nothing. These blood-sucking vermin make it a dangerous thing to fail. They are the spawn of the Culture of Irresponsibility where none are accountable for their own situation, there is always someone/something to blame.
It is a comforting narcotic that allows them to go through life without ever facing the icy blast of responsibility. They can turn aside into the cocoon of blame and avoid the hard thought and self-examination that responsibility and maturity demand.
This more than anything else divides the herd between the winners and the losers; splits humanity into the addicts of redistribution and those that create wealth and progress.
Drat! I see that Victor got there first.
Anyways, kudos to all involved. I love to see humanity rise to the occasion; underwater, underground or on the surface people are amazing. Just when you think that the entire human race is becoming rotten to the core something like this happens and strips away the tarnish.
I wonder what it was like for the miners when they opened the capsule door and, realizing that they were truly safe, took their first breath of fresh air in over a month, just how completely alive they must have felt! Much like Churchill’s famous quote; “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result”.
I’m not particularly religious, but reading the passage above made me want to look up Psalm 33 (I mean, 33 rescued and all), and this stood out to me:
“But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
19 to deliver them from death
and keep them alive in famine.
20 We wait in hope for the LORD;
he is our help and our shield.
21 In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
22 May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD,
even as we put our hope in you.”
I’ll just put this down to the mind’s amazing ability to match patterns or something like that.
Thanks to Gordon for good advice on the last thread.
@wretchard # 15
I see that all fifty attorneys general are “investigating” the societal scale fraud that residential morgtage foreclosures have become. Will they stand up, and force the others with egg on their faces to also stand?
This is the biggest story of our lifetimes so far. Wouldn’t it be a perfect American irony (or not?) if a pack of politican lawyers finally turned this ship. Hold your breath.
anton #24
It is a comforting narcotic that allows them to go through life without ever facing the icy blast of responsibility. They can turn aside into the cocoon of blame and avoid the hard thought and self-examination that responsibility and maturity demand.
You wouldn’t be talking about the Preznit by some chance, would you? Today’s IBD editorial notes the difference between Chile’s president and ours:
“Pinera . . . grasped the importance of just being on hand and transparent. The Chileans communicated clearly with both the miners and the outside world about what was happening. One of the first three holes drilled by rescuers was for communication.
Pinera spent a lot of time at the remote desert site. He was there when the incredible discovery of life was made, and he assured the miners the long wait for their rescue was strictly geological and logistical — not bureaucratic. He gave everyone hope by being engaged and involved.
By sad contrast, Obama stayed far away from the Gulf during the BP spill, as if to deny it, and made only a few brief appearances later. . . .
Pinera is different. He focused on avoiding conflict and laying blame while the rescue was still on. He took accountability himself by firing incompetent inspectors on his own side, but didn’t condemn business or shut down an entire industry, as Obama did with his Gulf moratorium, only now being lifted.
Pinera worked with local officials instead of bickering with them or throwing up bureaucratic obstacles because they belonged to the wrong party. Sadly, that’s what Obama did with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who had to take matters into his own hands in building berms when Louisiana’s coast was threatened by the April spill.
Chileans, by contrast, said the crisis united them as never before. That takes leadership, and it comes about only because Pinera believes in openness, free markets, transparency and putting himself last.
That, along with the bravery of the miners, the effectiveness of the tools and the remarkable organizational skills that were brought to bear, turned a horrible tragedy into perhaps the greatest rescue operation in history.”
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=550307
Wretchard @15 hit the nail on the head.
Our much maligned Western technology, our much maligned American spirit, our much maligned faith, proved indeed to be exceptional in the nation to the south that most admires and emulates America.
Every time I read this site I am grateful.
Sirius and Blert said “the key players and technology were cranked up on the fly by America” and “The technology and expertise involved are direct from the good ole USA”
Read the link, because as much as I love the ‘good ole USA’, what Chile accomplished can’t be done here any more. The potential might be here, what you call key players, but the ability to put it together at the top level is not there. American drills and crews, an Austrian-made hoisting system, German cable, pulling a Chilean designed and fabricated cage. The technology was international, but the strategy —the plan and the guts to implement it— was Chilean.
Look at US mine disasters in the last 20 years for a solid record of failure-avoidance, a record of inaction. Look at the recent Gulf fiasco for examples of American ‘leadership’ and the inability to decide or lead.
As PA_Cat points out, President Pinera stayed on site overnight and through the day in addition to the other visits he had made. The Minister of Mines, a Cabinet position, stayed awake (and cheerful no less!) for 30+ hours overseeing and greeting each and every miner. The same for dozens of other officials; they stayed onsite to get the job done.
27. PA Cat
“You wouldn’t be talking about the Preznit by some chance, would you?”
Mayhap, perchance his whole class.
29. Jim Patrick
“President Pinera stayed on site overnight and through the day in addition to the other visits he had made. The Minister of Mines, a Cabinet position, stayed awake (and cheerful no less!) for 30+ hours overseeing and greeting each and every miner”
The Resident would need a very loooong vacation to recover from such exertions.
I am willing to bet that a more forceful and active person is in the WH 26 months from now. Maybe somebody with a record of accomplishment and honesty.
Hey, a guy can dream!
A simple change in the law to discourage spurious litigation would change the incentives. It will not happen.
In the UK you can sue anyone for anything
–but if you loose you have to pay the other sides legal fees and costs
–so people and lawyers think twice.
John Edwards made his millions putting good MDs out of business and he almost became POTUS.
This entropic force of litigation means that MDs, and others, have every incentive to make defensible, rather than wise, Decisions, and to order $Billions in unnecessary tests etc.
The real danger is that this culture of risk aversion will infect the US Military and the SAS
—”Who Dares Wins”–
re: “Dude, where’s my country?”
It’s disappeared into the ravenous maw of the administrative, regulatory, and litigious state, aka the capricious rule of men (and far removed from the rule of law, with all equal under the law) while we were focused on other matters and believing that the human-condition couldn’t corrupt our government while we weren’t paying attention (even as it consumed more than a third of our wealth and dictated how we’d spend another third.. as long as we didn’t feel the boot on our neck, we just didn’t care).
Serves us right. Now what should we do? I stand with L3.
re: the 3rd man.
Fredrick Forsyth (of Day of the Jackal and Dogs of War fame) wrote a short story back in the 70s called “The Navigator” about a post WWII British airman who wasn’t getting home on a Christmas night without help, who knew his life was forfeit without a working radio over a land sheathed in fog:
… “That’s right, sir. He used to go up for a second flight in the same night, patrolling out over the North Sea, looking for a crippled plane. Then he’d guide them home, back here to Minton, sometimes through fog so dense you couldn’t see your hand. Sixth sense, they said he had; something of the Irish in him.”
… “Quite a man, I said, and I meant it. Even today, middle-aged, he was a superb flier. “Oh yes, sir, quite a man, Mister Johnny. I remember him saying to me once, standing tight where you are before the fire: Joe, he said, whenever there’s one of them out there in the night, trying to get back, I’ll go out and bring him home. I nodded gravely. The old man so obviously worshipped his wartime officer.
“Well, I said, by the look of it, he’s still doing it.” Now Joe smiled.
“Oh, I hardly think so, sir. Mister Johnny went out on his last patrol Christmas Eve 1943, just fourteen years ago tonight. He never came back, sir. He went down with his plane somewhere out there in the North Sea. Good night, sir. And Happy Christmas.”
As simple question for any judge or jury—
A bat and a ball together cost $1.10c
The bat cost a dollar more than the ball– how much does the ball cost?
answer—?
The recent death of the UK hostage in Afghanistan is now under investigation—how will they decide on the matter?
Decisions are usually evaluated by outcomes– but we live in an uncertain world.
1/ You decide to drive home drunk and you arrive home safely— bad decision– good outcome.
2/ You decide to drive home sober and you get into a crash —good decision–bad outcome.
Yet we always focus upon decision outcomes, Not the wisdom of the decision itself.
I hope the US Special Forces soldiers decisions are seen in the light of whether it was a wise decision to hurl the grenade at the time and given the state of information at the time—not the outcome.
“, President Pinera stayed on site overnight and through the day in addition to the other visits he had made. The Minister of Mines, a Cabinet position, stayed awake (and cheerful no less!) for 30+ hours overseeing and greeting each and every miner. The same for dozens of other officials; they stayed onsite to get the job done.”
But if the miners’ wives hadn’t undertaken to camp around the mine, the event wouldn’t have had that fame, and probably that the big international corporations wouldn’t have jumped on a opportunity where there would not have such a press covering, and no cameras, so don’t forget the miners wives !
W#8
“There is a related experience which some of us may have experienced, which the subjective slowing down of time in moments of great danger.”
Perception of external stimulations of all kinds changes dramatically. It is as if your mind filters and mutes all events, letting through only those that are of compelling interest and then only at a pace with which assimilation can occur. The sound of the machine gun two feet away is silenced; men running and yelling in near proximity are gone. Exploding mortar rounds and grenades, never happened, yet a movement in the brush one hundred yards out is as startling as nearby lightening and the sound of the movement is as thunder. Every action you take is infinitely slow and yet timed and executed to perfection. Every step, every move, every breath is consciously considered and taken, yet it as if watching another person in a movie.
Great danger itself is insufficient to cause the perceptual shift; an incoming artillery barrage for instance, brings about only an immediate reaction to get as low as possible accompanied by a fervent prayer that a direct hit be avoided. There is nothing to be done, it either takes you or it doesn’t. Even direct involvement in a firefight is insufficient; while panic beckons loudly with each pounding beat of your heart, the action remains on a human scale.
It is those extremely rare situations, those where you know that taking immediate cover, will cost your buddies their lives while only delaying your own demise. Once that becomes clear in your mind, it is as though you have stepped into a new dimension. Fear and panic are gone, cold and heat do not exist, unimportant sounds and motions disappear. Only a perfect sense of timeless awareness, ability and action remains.
It seems as if you can cover ten yards with a single stride and plant your foot exactly where you intended and the intended spot was perfectly chosen to enable your next action. Your weapon and web gear are all exactly where they need to be at all times. No matter the violence of your actions, your control is absolutely perfect, your mind is euphoric.
When all is done, you know that you didn’t take ten yard strides, that your weapon and web gear weren’t exactly where they needed to be, that all your buddies hadn’t disappeared, that mortars and grenades were indeed exploding around you and that there was no cause for euphoria. Yet, that is how it is experienced. And, as impossible as it seems, maybe all those things really did happen that way.
The only explanation open to me is that the human mind elides all of the mistakes and most of the unimportant details, rendering only the essential events. The most interesting question is how does the altered state of being come about? In my experience it is not chosen; it is as if it has chosen you. You cannot simply decide, even while in great danger, to enter such a state. The events seem (in retrospect, correctly) to single you out for the experience. Somebody else could have done it, but you were best positioned for success. Others may have ‘crossed over’ with you, but the experience was not one to be talked about until years later.
#33. oops. my bad.
s/The Navigator/The Shepherd/ (Forsyth story)
W: “Now that the Chilean miners have been rescued after being trapped underground for months the limelight will begin to shift to the men who rescued them.”
From the news accounts, there were at least two and possibly as many as six volunteers who rode the capsule down into that subterranean grotto. Manuel Gonzalez, is the only volunteer whose name I’ve seen mentioned. I wonder which volunteer was the last to be recovered?
All focus on the rescued
So little on the saviors
The drama in the helpless
All eyes on their behaviors
Resigned, despaired or prayerful?
Belligerent, pugnacious?
When rescued are they grateful
Or are they less than gracious?
The brave mine men of Chile
Two months and more lie passive
Undaunted though they’re buried
Inside a fissured massif
Outside the world came running
Men rushed to help the victims
Help those in need of rescue
Is one of mankind’s dictums
And so they’re reunited
With wives who wept to see them
Thanks to the men in shadows
Who worked so hard to free them
As simple question for any judge or jury—
A bat and a ball together cost $1.10c
The bat cost a dollar more than the ball– how much does the ball cost?
answer—?
When we ran this test with MIT and SU engineering students around 57% gave the answer as 10c for the ball.
The law students gave the 10c answer 98%+
The logical answer and correct answer is
– 5c for the cost of the ball
— do the math.
Christian civilization is built upon that of Greece, Rome, the Magna Carta and 1776
Christian Civilization is the balance of Faith and Reason.
I believe our best hope is the Anglosphere moving forward.
How long before Geraldo Rivera is down in the mine?
overlawyered Late Ancient Rome
…
The notaries (tabelliones) appeared in the late Roman Empire. Like their modern-day descendants, the civil law notaries, they were responsible for drafting wills, conveyances, and contracts.[194] They were ubiquitous and most villages had one.[194] In Roman times, notaries were widely considered to be inferior to advocates and jurisconsults.[194] Roman notaries were not law-trained; they were barely literate hacks who wrapped the simplest transactions in mountains of legal jargon,
since they were paid by the line.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawyer
In 1974, winter time, we were on Patrol Station north of the Artic Circle. A shipmate became seriously ill. The captain made the decision to break radio silence and requst that we be allowed to bring the man in. We were ordered to return to a location North of Scotland in the Atlantic/North Sea and the man would be medi-vaced via helicopter of the British Navy. During the transit the boat was on the surface as we were crossing many shipping lanes. When on the surface there are men in the sail, mimimum is an Officer of the Deck and Lookout. If there is one place in the world that a submarine does not want to be is on the surface, especially in the Northern oceans during the winter. There was a full gale blowing and we were pitching and rolling enough to throw men out of there bunks. We took a rogue wave, no one is exactly sure how high the wave was. A mountain of water forced us down to 60 to 80 feet keel depth. There was 30 to 50 feet of water over the top of the sail and was flooding into the boat through the controlroom hatch. All the lighting in the Operations Conmpartment was flooded and ground faults opened the breakers to most if not all the normal lighting. The ship’s alarm system filled with water so every alarm was sounding at the same time (a hair raising cackle of noise). We took on sufficient water to have knee deep water in lower level operations compartment. The battery well for the 627 Class Boomers is located in lower level operations, we were in serious trouble. Life hung in the balance of the crew accomplishing their jobs and we did, or I would not be here today to tell this story. However, there is one aspect to this story that even today I makes me wonder why I am still alive. The controlroom hatch was on the “latch”, opened and thus locked into the open position by the latch. Normally, to close this hatch a man must climb up the ladder, push the hatch back and release the latch. On this day, the “extra man” released the latch and the hatch closed and sealed due to sea pressure.
There is much more to this story . . . it was a horror filled event . . . and today . . . I live on borrowed time . . . given to me by the “extra man”. Who WAS there!!!
The Chilean story has been an instructive parable, and includes simple determination, humility, faith in God, and assistance from others – including the often disrespected USA – in the form of skilled people and technology. It might also do some good, at least for a while, in knitting their once torn polity back to a state where a leader of either left or right can be contemplated without undue fear & loathing. National cohesion is more important than whether your government leans a little to one side or the other. Chile needs this.
Ari Tai #33:
I believe that story by Forsythe is called “The Shephard” and it is beautifully illustrated with drawings. I have a copy somewhere.
Some significant portion of the miners wore clean tan shirts on with some writing on them. Wonder what they said? Since it was assiduously ignored by the press I assume it was an expression of faith.
An American president couldnt do what the Chilean did. He’d be crucified for exploitation of the disaster and the miners, regardless of party. We have lost a commonality of purpose which is vital to community. Tort lawyers are part of it, societal cynicism is part of it, a willfully ignorant press is part, but the root I think is a refusal of a big chunk of the Ruling Class to embrace and celebrate American exceptionalism. Most Americans and others (W, particularly) do recognize it but the rulers, not so much.
And the Squalus episode also reminds me that ALL of the recipients of the Medal know it.
“the Creed: descensus ad inferos.” I remember years ago when I was Protestant a girl told me that she didn’t like this part of the Creed, for whatever reason. As an Orthodox Christian I actually find it one of the most hopeful parts, that the Risen Christ ‘harrowed’ or conquered Hell itself (or at least the gloom somewhere between Heaven and Hell) and terrified the demons who thought they’d killed him. Xristos Voskrese!
Herb 46,
Yes – the religious aspects of their ordeal have definitely received limited coverage.
Herb and exhelodrvr;
The Propaganda Media could never admit that faith had anything to do with the miners being able to hold it together while trapped. In their cynical materialist world there is no faith in anything beyond their own profound smugness. The Chilean media didn’t need to point it out as it was readily understood by the viewers and there had been no shortage of coverage of people praying for the rescue of the miners and even public figures calling for people to pray for the rescue to succeed.
The racist egotists of the MSM view prayer as something that is done only by right-wing “bitter clingers” here in the USA and by superstitous “people of color” in the rest of the world. To them it ranks with tossing spilled salt over your shoulder or avoiding the number thirteen.
The idea that a strong faith in a loving God that responds to our entreaties is utter nonsense to them. That the same faith would allow men to not only survive in the physical sense but to remain sane in what had to be a truly hellish place is beyond the MSM’s capacity to comprehend. Don’t even start about any sort of actual Divine intervention guiding the rescue efforts, Liberal heads will be exploding all over the place at the very suggestion.
MSO #36: Many of our best operators say that they reverted to their training, and weren’t consciously aware of what they would do next; to my mind the rehearsal allows the performance.
One parallel not noted so far is to the American POWs of Vietnam. As far as reacting to a series of stressful conditions, there were many similarities. But the miners believed after the first few days that supplies were imminent and deliverance fairly certain. Not so for Stockdale, Denton, McCain, et al. Their deliverance was no certainty, and many times they were afraid of their comrades’ B-52s overhead. Yet for the most part they stood together (as much as prison conditions would permit) and exceeded any expectations their nation would entertain. Heroes all, Chile and USA alike!
By the way, this incident leads me to recall the article by Wretchard that was spurred by a photo of a helicopter in Afghanistan unloading troops onto the roof a building.
He pointed out that there are many Western skills that apply to both the military and civilian worlds, in contrast to the skills fo terrorism.
That applies here, too. Think now, the American who was drilling wells in Afghanistan was rushed to Chile, the other side of the world, to help rescue the miners. The people at NASA helped design the recovery capsule and advised on healthcare for the trapped miners.
How many Islamic countries could have done this? None, not even the ones who are filthy rich. That is even more important than the fact they would not have helped infidels in the first place.
One could easily imagine Al Queda rushing a terrorist from Afghanistan to Chile to blow up the American Embassy, and even then he would have to rely on Western airlines to get him there. And most Islamic countries could not even manage that much of an effort.
To a large extent the war is about the Islamic lack of self-esteem, and especially the fact that such a lack is entirely appropriate given their long record of non-accomplishments. And they know this, too. The former president of Pakistan, a dictator himself, even stood up at an Islamic international conference and asked the representatives to consider why the Islamic countries are inevitably the worst hellholes on Earth.
Like the residents of an inner city ghetto, the Islamics both deplore their condition, are jealous of anyone who has it better, and distrust anyone not like themselves, especially those who might be able to straighten things out for them. Perhaps the real reason why Obama wants NASA to focus on improving Islamic self-esteem and so desperately wants to stop fighting the Islamic fascists is that he sees in them people who choose leaders like him.
Michael Moore summed this up well: “Slackers of the world, unite!”
In a hurry, eating on the run, no time for my usual rant for everyone to get on the line…
But wanted to show you another example of “American Know-how”.
http://blog.robballen.com/2010/10/14/p4340-truly-an-amazing-feat.post
The cost of this project wouldn’t cover the expenses of one meeting for NASA officials even if it were held at their headquarters and had free donuts and coffee.
What does that say about our “state of the art” efforts ran by the government?
Papa Ray
52. Papa Ray
That should win the Coolest Father/child Science Project of the Year Award.
Commonplace items used in an uncommon manner, amazing!
Chile miners had a good leader, that organized their life underground, he was a “born” leader, he already such a experience when he raised his five brothers and sisters under Pinochet dictature, when his father died
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39661669/ns/world_news-americas/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/iron-discipline-that-saw-the-33-through-2105631.html
Plan B Turns Out to Be Fastest Path for Rescue
“To tell you the truth, I don’t think anyone had a whole lot of faith in us,” said Brandon Fisher, president of Center Rock, a company in Berlin, Pa., that supplied the Plan B drills. “They didn’t understand the technology.”
Mr. Fisher and others lobbied the Chilean government to let them use the drills, known as downhole hammers, which have air-powered bits that pound the rock as the drill rotates. The other two drilling operations used more conventional bits that work through rotation only.
The geology of the region — hard volcanic rock infused with other extremely hard minerals — favored the Plan B equipment, said Maurice B. Dusseault, a professor of engineering geology at the University of Waterloo in Canada. “In very hard, brittle rocks, percussion drilling is indeed an excellent way” to make progress, he said.
The effort was also aided by the dry conditions encountered underground in the Atacama region of Chile, one of the driest deserts in the world. “You can’t do percussion drilling if you have water or mud in the bore hole,” Mr. Dusseault said, as the liquids absorb too much of the percussive energy.
The Plan B drillers made use of one of the small bore holes that were drilled to locate the miners after the collapse, widening it first to 12 inches and then to 28 inches to accommodate the rescue capsule. Using such a pilot hole “was really our only option,” said Mr. Fisher, who delivered the drills himself and stayed at the site for the entire drilling operation. “There were so many old workings in the mine that we couldn’t risk starting a new hole. We went with a sure thing.”
Even using the pilot hole, the 12-inch drill encountered a steel roofing bolt that heavily damaged the equipment and delayed the operation for a few days.
The use of a pilot hole also allowed the drillers to drop the rock cuttings down the existing hole, reducing the complexity of the operation, said Frank Gabriel, a vice president of Schramm, the Pennsylvania company that made the mobile drilling rig used by Plan B. “Normally you’d have to flush all those cuttings back to the surface,” he said. “That takes a lot more air.”
(anyone know what happened to the cuttings below, ie how did they avoid having them block the chamber?)
Pennsylvania company’s drill helps punch through to Chilean miners
D/55–as the cuttings fell down the hole, the miners hauled them away. They had lots of room down there.
Someone asked me once what distinguished this particular group of individuals from some others I’ve worked with. My instant answer was that “they’re not afraid to fail”. They’re not afraid of falling down, losing the stake, getting egg all over their faces or being laughed at. Maybe we’ll succeed and maybe we’ll fail. But one thing’s for sure. It was given a try.
To be “can do” means above all, to be willing to fail. Otherwise we are in that other country: cover your ass. In that universe nobody fails. Nobody can be blamed. And if nothing happens, so what? The point is simply that no liability can attach.
Oh my gosh, Wretchard (i.e. Richard), you hit the nail so squarely on the head. This was your “quote of the year”, buddy.
Americans fear the personal legacy of failing to try, failing to make the appropriate level of effort, of giving less than the full account of one’s self, than we do actually failing at any given task. I have worked with foreign nationals nearly my entirely professional life, in situations 5% American native to 95% foreign national, and this is the key difference. Also, heavily stratified societies (e.g. India’s “caste” system) are much worse. There seems to be no concept of “win-win” – it’s always “win-lose”, “know your place”, and absolutely CYA (and be plenty prepared to assign blame.
This is one key reason why I still see America has having a future despite all of our problems. Our hope is in knowing we will never yield, never give up, we’ll always “find a way”.
Old Salt
It goes back to what Dr. Sanity always used to talk about regarding cultures… a ‘shame’ culture will focus on figuring out who’s fault something is, a ‘guilt’ culture will get to work on solving the problem. That’s why engineers are so quick to admit their mistakes, so much more gets done when you don’t have to worry about tiptoeing past fragile egos. There are people stuck in a well, lets think of the quickest most feasable way to get them out, everything else can wait.
The tan tee shirt mystery is solved despite the press:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/faith_and_the_rescued_chilean.html
“The Baptist wire services told the story of a Baptist pastor, Marcelo Leiva, and one of the miners, Jose Henriquez, who collaborated on the Bible Studies that Henriquez was conducting for fellow evangelical believers underground. Henriquez’s brother distributed T-shirts to those at Camp Esperanza, the tent city called “Camp Hope” set up for those awaiting the miners. The shirts bore a Bible verse, “To Him be the glory and honor. Because in his hands are the depths of the earth, and the heights of the mountains are His” (Psalm 95:4).
Just a small correction: The sinking of the Squalus took place not 80 years ago, but a little over 71 years ago, on May 23, 1939.
What American Thinker says is largely true, but read Baptist Press (BP) yourself to see the discrepancies. http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=33863
Also beware of those devious Spanish names that leave off their last name for some reason; the Baptist Minister shares the same published name as a ‘gay-rights’ activist. [Wretchard - is Spanish really this complicated? I get better Russian, Finn, or even Turkish to-English automatic translations than I do from Spanish]
The right sleeves of the shirts clearly say “Cruzada Estudiantil y Profesional Para Cristo”, Campus Crusade for Christ, with its logo above. On the left sleeve is the Jesus Film Project logo: the name “Jesus” in large letters and “Film Project” in tiny letters beneath it. Verse four of Psalm 95 is on the back and below that it says:
De Él es la Honra y la Gloria
To Him is the Honor and the Glory <— not part of Psalm, probably derived from Revelation 5
The front of the shirts is the huge Chilean red-white-and-blue star, overprinted with “¡Gracias Señor! Thank you Lord” But those are details. The big picture is that the miners asked for and got Bibles, that they asked for and received shirts —shirts they wore over top of new jumpsuits— bearing witness to their faith. The big picture is that they had prayer services twice every day.
The biggest picture of all —an indictment— is that the western press ignored, misrepresented,and downplayed the ordinary and routine professions of faith and national pride; at every level from the miners to their nation's leaders.
38. MSO
“… Manuel Gonzalez, is the only volunteer whose name I’ve seen mentioned. I wonder which volunteer was the last to be recovered?”
Manuel González was the first in and the very last out.
The other six rescuers are:
Roberto Ríos
Patricio Robledo
Jorge Bustamante
Patricio Sepúlveda
Pedro Rivero
I’m sure that the reason I never rose any higher in management than I did (truth is the miracle is that I rose as far as I did!) was the things that caused me to say when we had a disaster within a large computer center “&*%^&#$() it, I don’t want to fix the blame,I want to fix the problem. Then I want to locate the cause and fix that so it won’t happen again. I may never get around to the blame thing.”
I instituted an “Operator’s Notebook” (Actually “Console Manager’s … our operator’s were 1st-level management for the obvious reasons) which stayed on the console and in which the operator’s were asked to note any aberration from normal observed–including errors made by the author of the entry.
As long as I was there, the pages of the notebook were not copied and nothing in the notebook could be used in a disciplinary action. (Yes, it was a “kings X mechanism for errors, surprisingly it was possible to successfully argue that the worst parts of past disasters were the results of attempts to cover up an error, not from the original error.)
Regarding the “extra man” phenomenon, I have my own experience in this area to relate:
More than 10 years ago, but less than 15 (I can’t remember exactly which summer it was) I had a job working for an electrical co-op in rural Wyoming putting plastic guards on the guy wires of power poles. This job generally took me all over the countryside, and on more than one occasion onto reservation land, without a phone, radio, or any means of defending myself.
One day I made the mistake of not checking diligently around the truck before vacating the vehicle, and once I was far enough away from the truck that I could not quickly return, I was surrounded by a pack (~12) of feral dogs that had been let to run wild. They were circling me, growling and snarling, ears back, teeth bared, and clearly intended to do me harm.
I would like to say I uttered a quick prayer, but I do not know that I did. I can’t remember one way or the other, but at that time of my life my first thoughts did not have a tendency to God.
I’m trying to keep my cool, not show fear (it didn’t matter in the least) and was coming to the realization that I was going to die, when the biggest dog I have ever seen trotted up. It was massively huge, and jet black. It came right up beside me, looked me in the eye just once, and sat down at my side. It didn’t make a sound, and it didn’t look at me again.
The other dogs freaked out at this new presence, and began backing away, snarling and snapping even more than before, but with a new edge of fear to their demeanor. The big black dog continued to just sit there, and I calmly made my way back to my truck. I got in, started up the truck, and said whispered a brief prayer of thanks.
Putting the truck in gear, I checked my mirrors to make sure I wouldn’t back over the black dog, but he was gone, nowhere to be seen. The other dogs were all still there, still hassling me, but the my giant black savior was no where to be seen.
I’m convinced it was an angel. I’m also convinced that if only I could keep this story in my mind at all times, I wouldn’t commit any of the stupid, selfish, or mean acts that cause grief and pain to others in my life.
Wretchard once penned a brief line of prayer that I try and recite every day, and to which I’ve added just a little. “Lord, let me remember, help me to think straight, and have mercy on me, a sinner.”
oops. I mean’t to say ‘the other 5′. there were six total who went in.
I may get called morbid, and maybe I am, but I think of the rude, panicky, or rude and panicky behavior we have seen in similar circumstances….
Has anybody said how they decided the evacuation order? And I didn’t realize (although one can say I should have) that rescuers had to put themselves in danger to get the men out. So that would be 39 souls.
God bless them all, and the ingenuity, skill, and diligence that made it happen.
And, without taking a thing from the Chilean heroes (are there others that I don’t know of) I’d like to see our leftist folks (started to write “friends–can’t do it) acknowledge that the USA was there in its exceptional way to contribute to the effort.