My Time As A Trapped Chilean Copper Miner

On August 5, 2010, a gold and copper mine collapsed in Chile with 33 miners trapped inside. Alive. Through careful rationing, they survived for over two weeks without any contact from the outside world. On August 22nd, contact with the surface was made where the miners learned that it would take four months before they would be rescued.

The public response to this unfortunate situation was fiery and intense and then almost immediately forgotten about until about a week ago, when the miners were rescued. As of this writing, all 33 miners are out and safe.

Recent interviews, as well as the discovery of several documents scattered about the mine suggest that there was a 34th miner, who, depending on who you asked, was named "Daniel O'Brien," "Disnatch O'Bitchle," "Doctor O'Butt" or "'Big' Dick Thrusthumper." A thorough investigation of the mine leaves no clues to his whereabouts. All that we have are these trace documents and the reports of other miners.

Making Contact

From The Coalition for Rescuing Chilean Mine Workers, [CRCMW]:

On Aug. 22, we forced a drill through the caved-in land but stopped when knocking was heard on the drill head as it reached the depths of the mine. Rescuers withdrew the drill to find a note attached:

We also received a second, cryptic, slightly less helpful note on the same drill.

This was both our first contact with the miners and our first suspicion that something was not quite right with one of them.

Waste

From the Mine's Foreman

"The bottom line is I'm happy to be out of there, but that's only partly because it was a nightmarish tunnel hundreds of feet underground and away from everyone I love. I was honestly more terrified about O'Bitchle, to be perfectly frank. When the mine first collapsed, I put a system of rationing in place almost immediately. Our supplies were only supposed to last us for two days, but I found a good routine: Each man would get two spoonfuls of tuna, half a cookie and a half-full glass of milk every 48 hours. I set up a chemical toilet, a makeshift latrine and found a way to get us potable water. It wasn't ideal, but hey, it kept us alive until the surface could send more food down. Those first 17 days, remember, we didn't know if they'd ever find us.

"By the 50th hour, O'Bitchle had consumed nineteen and a half cookies, threw out a pound of tuna fish and power-chugged an entire gallon of milk on a dare he made with himself. He also pooped every- Just everywhere.

Diary entries on first meeting "O'Brien"

The men were encouraged to keep diaries, to document their experiences in the mine. (Unfortunately, O'Brien didn't leave a diary or, impossibly, any fingerprints.) Here are their first impressions of O'Brien.

Communication

Communication was very limited. Early on, we could only communicate by passing notes back and forth. Unfortunately, this stalled the overall rescue process as all digging had to stop when notes were passed, as there was only room for the notes to go through the mineshaft safely. The process was costly and time-consuming. We made it clear to the miners that they were only to request communication when it was absolutely necessary. We interrupted our rescue mission to receive the following notes, all within the first week, presumably from Mr. O'Brien:

It didn't take us long to start ignoring requests for communication.

The Football Incident

Quotes

[In the pursuit of constructing a profile for the purpose of identifying this Thrusthumper, we asked the men to submit any of 'Big' Dick's quotes that they may have remembered, anything at all that might help us in finding out where this man came from.]

After the mine caved in:

"It's pretty clear that we're going to have to start a new civilization down here. You two build a fire, you three see if you can get a wireless connection going, the rest of you decide which one is fattest and then kill that one. I'll be over here, looking for things to put my dick in."

"I barely know her!"

"Look, let's be honest, there was always a chance I'd be found dead in a cave with a belt around my neck surrounded by a bunch of terrified miners --in fact I'm pretty sure that was my Senior Superlative in high school-- but I can say I am pleasantly surprised by how it's played out. Neat little twist."

On allegations that he was responsible for the cave-in:

"Oh, I'm responsible? I'm responsible? If I was responsible, would I do this?" [And then he burned a third of our rations.] I've never been responsible for anything in my entire god damned life."

"I only did it because I needed to prove to you guys that you don't need all of this gold and copper. You know what the real gold is? Turns out it was the memories you were creating as friends. Yeah. You're welcome."

"Hey while we're all talking about gold is there seriously supposed to be gold down here? I could be really into that."

When it became clear the miners would be trapped for four months:

"Four months? Four months!? That's four hundred and sixty days! I'm sorry, four hundred and eighty! Still no? It's, uh- Two... two hundred and a- It's, oh you guys wanted the total? Okay, it's... between- Don't- Hey, don't fucking tell me what it is, I know what it is. Eighty? It's- Because some months have more days, so it's, they're different, we don't- We don't really know, we can't know. Two-sixty?" [This went on a while. Eventually we just told him.]

"Four months doesn't give us much time. If we're going to kill and eat that fat guy we need to move now."

"Man, we'll be trapped here 122 days. If you guys had a dime for every time you were going to see me masturbate you'd have 976 dimes. Each." [His math was surprisingly and depressingly accurate on this one.]

Miscellaneous

"Do you guys ever just stare up at the cold, dark ceiling and think about how unfaithful all of your wives are probably being back on the surface? Really makes you think. About your promiscuous wives."

[This next one was actually a rap. There was a lot of rapping.]

"They say we're fuckin' caved in,

but, yo, we gon' be saved in

Four months, maybe more if

The rocks start pourin'.

Shit this is boring,

There's nothing to explore and

The miners all hate me 'cause I said 'Your lady's whoring."

But I'm just saying statistically speaking, she probably is. It's just a fact. I mean, loyalty to the concept of romantic monogamous love is certainly appealing but not when it blinds you to reality, right? She has needs, you know. And then the chorus would happen."

"I barely know her! Your trampy wife, I mean. And I guess I know her fairly well if you know what I mean."