Like millions of my fellow Canadians, I have been following this incident very close since day one. With any rescue mission, the ensuing media race to be the first to "report" is often fraught with misinformation, half truths, rumors and plenty of second and third guessing from far too may armchair experts who have zero firsthand knowledge of the problems the SAR team faced in those dark hours inside that building.

Today, 2 bodies were pulled from the rubble. And now a much different and more realistic set of information and details have been released on the decisions of the SAR team to suspend the search due to danger involved. For those who did not see the news coverage today, those same SAR team members who had been previously severely criticized, were cheered for their efforts.

At the afternoon news conference, Bill Neadles' (SAR spokesperson) voice broke as he described how his team was "devastated" by a sense from Elliot Lake residents the crew was giving up prior to the heavy equipment arriving. He said it was his decision to take his team out because "beams were going to fail."

"These men are professional police officers, firefighters and emergency medical paramedics ... that you thought we were going to pack up and go home. That was devastating," said Neadles. "We would stay another four to five weeks if we had to."

The audience, made up of townspeople, began to clap as Neadles finished his remarks and stood up to give him and his team, who are all volunteers and unpaid for the work, the applause. A clearly choked up Neadles went silent.