Can you image how you would handle being trapped 3,200 feet underground, with conditions of 90 degrees Fahrenheit at 90 percent humidity, knowing you're going to be there for 3 to 4 months?

You and your 32 co-workers are packed into an area that's 540 square feet (that's a square 24 feet on each side). Each person has 16 square feet (a square 4 feet on a side).

The only thing approaching a nicety is that there's a 3-foot-tall shaft 130 feet long that's being used as a latrine.

<http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/08/27/chile.miners/index.html?hpt=T1>

Watching this unfold will be an interesting study in the psychology of survival.

"at least nine miners are still too overweight to fit through the proposed rescue shaft".... Houston, we've got a problem!

The scale of this situation makes our convoluted discussions of the best (insert favorite trinket here) for our survival scenarios (usually involving a long weekend wandering in the woods, with plenty of air and sunlight) seem pretty trivial...

So far, these guys seem to have done pretty well. We can learn more from them than we ever can from BG.

I'm not seeing a number of overweight miners as a major issue. It is going to take months to get the shaft down to them. Girth being a go-no go factor in coming out, seeing daylight and family, should provide the motivation to have them meet requirements. With time and motivation, and food supply limited from up top, I don't see weight loss as a big problem.

It also has to be noted that fat is seldom a barrier to getting people into or out of tight spots. Fat moves around quite readily. The limiting factor is almost always bone. In cave rescues it is pretty common to break the color bones of people to allow their shoulders to fold and make moving them through tight spots easier.

One of the problems they face is the psychology and group dynamics of long-term waiting in a tight spot. On the up side they are not alone. On the down side as numbers increase the group dynamics get much more complicated and potentially volatile.

To their benefit they are Chileans, not, in the narrow sense, Americans. Chileans are typically much more psychologically secure within their society and socially prepared to make sacrifices for the larger group. Being secure in their standing they will tend toward compromise instead of resorting to posturing and demanding shows of independence because of their inner insecurity. It helps that violence, while not unknown, is typically not a central point of their identities.

On up side these are experienced miners who are familiar with confined spaces and rough conditions. On the down side these people have been selected to do the work of mining and not necessarily screened for psychological stability over the long-term as submariners usually are.

To the positive the miners have their working society and power structure relatively intact. The people who were leaders and guides are still there so there is no need to work out a new pecking order and power structure. Because of this everyone has a firmly established and secure role. This can be very reassuring and is far superior to situations where strangers are bottled up together and working relationships are disorganized, in flux, and subject to rivalries and jealousies.

True enough about fat not being a limiting factor, although in caving the issue is usually negotiating a relatively short "squeeze," not a uniform 2300 foot borehole. With men, the thickness of the rib cage usually limits what one can negotiate, while with women the pelvic girdle is the "selector."

I must say I have never heard of breaking collar bones as a technique to transport a victim through a passage. One can narrow the shoulder by simply extending one hand and dragging the other. In rescue work, it is far more common to enlarge the passage. Can you quote some actual occurrences?