Chilean miners: Life’s tough above

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Updated: November 28, 2011 10:08AM

The first anniversary of the Chilean miners’ amazing rescue on Oct. 13 of last year came and went without fanfare. No one is even considering wearing a rescued miner costume for Halloween, as some people did last year.

The 33 miners did not find fame and fortune after all. Most of them are now unemployed and many suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder — not only from cheating death after 69 days underground, but also from the fleeting international attention.

The miners now face the struggles of ordinary life, which in itself can demand extraordinary resilience and perseverance. And, I think it’s fair to say, their ordeal continues to offer lessons to us all on how to cope with dramatically difficult events in our own lives.

As you no doubt recall, the miners were trapped in a gold and copper mine in northern Chile for 17 days before rescuers could even make contact with them. The miners sent a message through a small hole telling the outside world that they were alive, sparking mass celebrations all over Chile and attracting international media attention.

The rescuers sent a video camera down to the miners. The images of the miners singing the Chilean national anthem and sending heartfelt messages to their families were seen around the world.

Finally, after more than two months, the miners were pulled to the surface, one by one, in a special capsule designed with assistance from NASA.

I watched the rescue, as I’m sure you did. We were members of a truly global audience, sharing the same fears, expressing the same good wishes.

We got to know Luis Urzua, the miner who established a food rationing system of just two spoons of tuna a day, which was crucial to their surviving the first two weeks. We came to know Mario Sepulveda, called “the Presenter” because he was the spokesman and tour guide in the videos the miners sent up.

Once rescued, the miners became celebrities. Edison Pena, for instance, was invited to run in the New York marathon because he used to jog an hour a day in the mine. He sang an Elvis Presley song, “Suspicious Minds,” on David Letterman’s “Late Show.” The Washington Post called him “totally adorable.”

But what’s Pena up to now? He’s undergoing treatment for psychological trauma and alcohol and drug addiction.

And Pena is by no means the sad exception. Most of the miners are struggling with unemployment and the emotional fallout of a horrific near-death experience. Only three have returned to the mines.

The movie and book deals, sorry to say, have not yet materialized. Even the sky-high poll ratings enjoyed by Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, who defied the need to sleep to personally welcome each miner to the surface, have plummeted.

For months, Chile has been immersed in a nationwide revolt of students demanding education reform. A new media darling, Camila Vallejo, a charismatic 23-year-old student leader, has drawn international attention.

But the Chilean miners’ story continues to inspire, if we let it. We can watch the video and take to heart once again what they taught us: Stick together and live.

The miners’ great challenge now is to get on with normal life — life without TV cameras — in the same determined way.

Just like the rest of us.