written by Judi McLeod, Canada...

"By daylight this morning, nine miners had been rescued with the breathtaking rescue operation expected to continue over the next two days.

Things looked grim for the miners when the San Jose mine collapsed on Aug. 5. It was going to take painstaking patience and a marvel of engineering to bring the men, trapped 2,100 feet below, to the surface.

When it became clear that all 33 miners trapped in the mine were alive, an emergency call went out to find the expertise to save them and was answered by the Mission Woods, Kansas Layne Christensen Company, who sent their most experienced drillers to the rescue.

Although they've shunned the publicity, the heroes in this rescue mission are ones of epic proportion. They include two drillers Jeff Hart and Matt Staffel, who had been drilling water wells in Afghanistan to support U.S. troops stationed there. Assisting the drillers were two Spanish-speaking drilling helpers, Doug Reeves and Jorge Herrera from Layne's western region in the U.S.

(Layne's Latin American affiliate) "Geotec operations manager James Stefanic said he quickly assembled "a top of the line team" of drillers who are intimately familiar with the key equipment, including engineers from two Pennsylvania companies—Schramm Inc., which makes the T130 drill, and Center Rock Inc., which makes the drill bits." (Michelle Malkin, Oct. 12, 2010.)

It was to be a hair-raising operation from the get-go.

As part of an amazing three-way race, Colorado father of two, Jeff Hart, drilled for 33 days straight and was first to reach the caved-in workers 8 a.m., Saturday.

Malkin continues" ..."Standing before the levers, pressure meters and gauges on the T130's control panel, Hart and the rest of the team faced many challenges in drilling the shaft. At one point, the drill struck a metal support beam in the poorly mapped mine, shattering its hammers. Fresh equipment had to be flown in from the United States and progress was delayed for days as powerful magnets were lowered to pull out the pieces…"

Typically American, strong, silent and unassuming, Hart had been drilling water wells for the U.S. Army's forward operating bases when he got the call to fly to Chile.

Hart's was a job that called for spending 33 days on his feet while loved ones of the miners stood by with their hearts in their eyes.

Watching the rescue from the distance of his home television screen in Colorado because he wanted this to become the miners' and their families' story, Hart told the Denver Post: 'This is the most important thing I have done in my work and probably the most important thing I will ever do.'"


{Also, NASA sent 20 engineers who advised on everything from the resuce capsule to the diet the miners received. The rescue capsule is NASA technology too. In short, the United States was behind this rescue operation just as it was in Haiti, Indonesia, etc. Yes, everywhere we are needed and asked to help.}