AP – Patricio Sepulveda, a corporal of the police special operations unit, center, talks to fellow officers
SAN JOSE MINE, Chile – A torrent of emotions awaits the 33 miners when they finally rejoin the outside world.
As trying as it has been for them to survive underground for more than two months, their gold and copper mine is familiar territory. Once out of the shaft, they'll face challenges so bewildering, no amount of coaching can fully prepare them.
They'll be celebrated at first, embraced by their families and pursued by more than 750 journalists who have converged on the mine, competing for interviews and images to feed to a world intensely curious to hear their survival story.
They've been invited to visit presidential palaces, take all-expense paid vacations and appear on countless TV shows.
Contracts for book and movie deals are pending, along with job offers. More money than they could dream of is already awaiting their signature.
Right now they are true heroes. Some will become celebrities if they want to. But eventually, a new reality will set in — and for most, it won't be anything like the life they knew before the mine collapsed above their heads.
"Before being heroes, they are victims," University of Santiago psychologist Sergio Gonzalez told The Associated Press. "These people who are coming out of the bottom of the mine are different people ... and their families are too."
A tentative but secret list has been drafted regarding which miners should come out first when the extraction begins in a rescue capsule, probably on Wednesday.
One by one they will take a twisting, 20-minute ride the half-mile (1 kilometer) up to a rock-strewn desert moonscape and into the embrace of those they love. The capsule is expected to rotate 350 degrees some 10 to 12 times through curves in the 28-inch-diameter (710-millimeter-diameter) escape hole on its way up.
Chile's government has promised each miner at least six months of psychological support.
"All of them will have to confront the media and fame, and will encounter families that aren't the same as when they were trapped," Health Minister Jaime Manalich said. "All of them will live through very difficult situations of adaptation."
At first they'll feel besieged, poorly treated by the media and perhaps overwhelmed by even the attention of their own families, predicted Dr. Claus Behn, a University of Chile physiologist with expertise on disorders stemming from surviving extreme situations. Society will "demand to know every minute detail, and they're going to offer enormous quantities of money and popularity."
The problem with being a hero is that "if you look down from the mountaintop, all you see is the abyss. It would make anyone feel vertigo," Behn said.
The miners have had the support of a team of psychologists while underground, but that was designed mostly to help them endure the extreme conditions.
Last week, they also got an hour a day of training in dealing with the media, including practice with "ugly, bad and indiscreet" questions about their time underground, their personal lives and their families, said Alejandro Pino, a former reporter who was part of a support team provided by Chile's workplace insurance association.
"I see them doing extraordinarily well," Pino said. "They're ready."
Coppied by http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101011/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_chile_mine_collapse;_ylt=AgnBnzNX.7a.Bm3ETDrKbIys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFicjVoM3V0BHBvcwM1MgRzZWMDYWNjb3JkaW9uX3dvcmxkBHNsawNjaGlsZXNtaW5lcnM-
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