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Trapped miners braved harrowing conditions

'They were either going to live or die as a group'

Randy Fogle was the first of the nine miners to be rescued early Sunday.

SOMERSET, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Imagine a small, dark, dank space -- up to 4 feet deep, 12 to 18 feet wide, 240 feet underground -- filled nearly to the top with water 55 degrees F.

Now put nine men in that space for more than three days, with no food and only their shared determination to keep each other alive.

The conditions braved by nine Pennsylvania coal miners rescued Sunday at Quecreek coal mine makes their survival -- and the condition in which they emerged -- all the more remarkable.

CNN NewsPass Video    •  CNN's Jeff Flock visits an abandoned Pa. mine   •  Surveyor used GPS to locate miners   •  Rescued miners go home   •  Miners express appreciation  MORE STORIES   •  Pennsylvania panel to explore mining accident   •  Flooded mine could be idle for months   •  Pa. governor: Mine's operator 'owes answers'   •  A turning point in the rescue effort   •  Miners braved harrowing conditions   •  Previous mining accidents were minor » Story archive  RESOURCES   •  Jeff Goodell: Despair turns to joy   •  Gov. Schweiker: Mine probe to seek answers   •  Rescued miner: 'It was a team effort'   •  Why we burn coal  EXTRA INFORMATION   •  Gallery: The rescued miners   •  Gallery: Rescue quotes   •  Graphic: Diagram of the Quecreek Mine   •  Map: Mining accident   •  Timeline: What happened, and when

"If you were to see any of these guys on the street right now, you would not know they were trapped in a cavern full of water for three days," said Dr. Russell Dumire, a trauma surgeon at Memorial Medical Center in Johnstown, where six of the miners were hospitalized.

"When one would get cold, the other eight would huddle around the person and warm that person, and when another person got cold, the favor was returned," said Dumire, according to The Associated Press.

The miners also huddled around a 6-inch pipe spewing warm, compressed air that rescuers had pushed into the mine, which Dumire said probably saved their lives, the AP reported.

The miners "decided early on they were either going to live or die as a group," he said.

The men were discovered alive late Saturday after workers drilled a rescue shaft down to an air pocket where the men had found refuge 240 feet below the surface. They had been there since Wednesday night when millions of gallons of water from an adjacent, long-abandoned mine crashed through into the Quecreek mine.

Dumire said the miners had rock ledges to lean on but spent most of their 77-hour ordeal standing. When they were hauled up one by one in a yellow rescue cage, they were covered in coal, he said.

The miners sustained only minor hypothermia, and just one showed possible evidence of decompression sickness. Their condition apparently surprised medical personnel who had prepared to treat them for symptoms of hypothermia or the bends, an excruciating condition caused by sudden changes in atmospheric pressure.

Decompression chambers, ambulances and two helicopters were at the scene, 55 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

The miners' resiliency was evident from the moment rescuers made contact late Saturday.

"They said, when they were still down in the mine, 'What took you guys so long?' " said Dave Hess, secretary of Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection.

"The coal miners around here, they're a tough breed," said Chiappelli, the Somerset Hospital official. "Living through this and enduring it, to a lot of people it's not a surprise."

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