Deep Down Dark (45 page)
Authors: Héctor Tobar
As with any life-threatening and life-altering experience lived by a large group of people, there are often dramatic differences of opinion about certain events, and about how certain individuals conducted themselves. The thirty-three men, as a group, entrusted me to tell their story fully, and to sort out exactly what is truth and what is myth, and I’ve tried to do so to the best of my ability. The responsibility for any errors in the text is mine alone.
Many of the physical details of the miners’ experiences during their first seventeen days trapped underground are derived from my interviews of the miners—but also from several videos shot by the men themselves. José Henríquez took his cell phone into the mine that fateful August 5 (instead of leaving it inside his locker on the surface, as others did), and that cell phone’s camera provided the only visual record of those days. In addition, the Chilean government shared with me the unedited version of the first video shot not long after the men were discovered, footage that provided dramatic evidence of the physical degradation of the men and of the inhuman conditions inside the San José Mine. I also had access to additional private images and videos shot by the miners themselves (with cameras sent down after rescue shafts reached them). In reconstructing what it’s like to enter and work in a subterranean mine, I also benefited greatly from a visit to the interior of a nearby mine with the then minister of mining, Laurence Golborne.
In addition to my interviews, a key document in writing this book was the report on the accident and its causes prepared by an investigative commission of Chile’s Congress. The NASA experts who traveled to Chile told their stories to a NASA oral history project, and I drew upon those accounts in the chapters on the rescue effort. More details came from the interviews the American driller Jeff Hart granted to a Colorado television station and a talk he gave at the Colorado School of Mines. A 1993 study of the geology and “mineralization” of the southern Atacama by several scientists for the
International Journal of Earth Sciences
(
Geologische Rundschau
) was a source for the passages on the geological history of the region. Darwin’s reminiscences of Copiapó and the Atacama are from his famous journal
The Voyage of the Beagle
. The account of Pedro Rivero’s unsuccessful rescue attempt is drawn, in part, from his November 2010 interview with the mining magazine
Area Minera
. The excellent 2011 retrospective on the rescue by the industry magazine
Minería Chilena
also provided and confirmed critical facts. Many details about the rescue come from the voluminous daily coverage of the events in Chilean newspapers, especially from
La Tercera
and
El Mercurio
, and from the work of Carlos Vergara Ehrenberg in his book,
Operación San Lorenzo
. This longtime veteran of newspaper reporting would like to acknowledge the professionalism of the Chilean writers and photographers who covered the San José Mine disaster, and he hopes that they will see the influence of their collective labors on this account.
Among the many interviews I conducted with rescuers and officials, many stand out, especially those with Golborne, Cristián Barra, Pedro Gallo, André Sougarret, the drillers Eduardo Hurtado and Nelson Flores, the rescuer Manuel González, the shift supervisor Pablo Ramirez, and Carlos Pinilla. The psychologist Alberto Iturra said he spoke to me because “my clients, the miners,” asked him to do so. And, finally, I am especially indebted to the families of Darío Segovia, Florencio Avalos, and Alex Vega for the many hours they spent with me in their homes.
The attorney María Teresa Hola guided me around Copiapó when I was just learning to navigate the city, and also shared her knowledge of her native city’s history, as did many other Copiapó residents. At the Carey law firm in Santiago, Paulina Silva and Pilar Fernández recounted their experiences with the miners to me, and Claudia Becerra and Soledad Azérreca helped track down the miners for interviews and organized the logistics of my trips to Chile. The attorneys Guillermo Carey, Fernando García, Remberto Valdés, and Ricardo Fischer were among those who agreed to entrust me with this project, and I am grateful for their support.
At Phoenix Pictures, Edward McGurn, Patricia Riggen, and the legendary Mike Medavoy offered many wonderful words of encouragement after reading my manuscript when it was still a work in progress. Nuria Anson transcribed hundreds of pages of my interviews—without her tireless and exceedingly fast work, this book would have taken years longer to write. Jessica Boianover in Buenos Aires transcribed additional interviews, as did Jazmin Ortega in Los Angeles, and Ricardo Luis Mosso in Buenos Aires conducted research. Idra Novey provided much helpful advice on my Spanish translations. The screenwriter José Rivera was my partner during many interviews, and his insights on the miners’ story were invaluable. The film producers Leopoldo Enríquez and Cecilia Avalos also helped set up many interviews.
I wrote most of this book while employed at the
Los Angeles Times
, and I’d like to thank the colleagues who helped me fulfill my responsibilities there while I simultaneously took on this massive project, including Nita Lelyveld, Joy Press, Carolyn Kellogg, and David Ulin. And I am deeply indebted to Judy Baldwin for her insights about the creative process and the human soul: Her counsel helped keep me sane and centered while writing this book.
Thank you to Jay Mandel, Alicia Gordon, and Eric Rovner at William Morris Endeavor for bringing this project to me and entrusting me with it. My longtime friend and editor Sean McDonald didn’t flinch when I told him I wanted to write this book, and he gave it a home at FSG.
Finally, and most important, my wife, Virginia Espino, sustained our family for the three years I spent working on this book, and endured my absences during the five trips I made to Chile. I could not have written this book without her love and support. Thank you,
amor de mi vida
.
ALSO BY HÉCTOR TOBAR
FICTION
The Tattooed Soldier
The Barbarian Nurseries
NONFICTION
Translation Nation
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Héctor Tobar is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and a novelist. He is the author of
The Barbarian Nurseries
,
Translation Nation
, and
The Tattooed Soldier
. The son of Guatemalan immigrants, he is a native of the city of Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife and three children.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2014 by Héctor Tobar
All rights reserved
First edition, 2014
An excerpt from
Deep Down Dark
originally appeared in
The New Yorker
.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint “It’s as if I’m pushing through massive mountains” from
The Poetry of Rilke
by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated and edited by Edward Snow. Translation copyright © 2009 by Edward Snow. Reprinted by permission of North Point Press, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Composite picture of the 33 miners by AFP / Getty Images.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tobar, Héctor, 1963–
Deep down dark: the untold stories of 33 men buried in a Chilean mine, and the miracle that set them free / Héctor Tobar. — First edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-374-28060-4 (cloth: alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-374-70920-4 (e-book)
1. San José Mine Accident, Chile, 2010. 2. Gold mines and mining—Accidents—Chile—Copiapó Region. 3. Copper mines and mining—Accidents—Chile—Copiapó Region. 4. Mine rescue work—Chile—Copiapó Region. 5. Survival—Chile—Copiapó Region. I. Title.
TN311 .T59 2014
363.11'962234220983145—dc23
2014008385
