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Parker Spitzer
Chile Miners Rescue
Aired October 13, 2010 - 20:21 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ELIOT SPITZER, CO-HOST: Good evening, I'm Eliot Spitzer.
KATHLEEN PARKER, CO-HOST: And I'm Kathleen Parker. We're also joined tonight by CNN's own chief political correspondent Candy Crowley.
Welcome, Candy.
SPITZER: And the debate between Republican Christine O'Donnell and Democrat Chris Coons will continue on cnn.com and will air in its entirety on CNN tonight at 11:00 p.m. Eastern time. But now, breaking news from the mine rescue in Chile.
We've all watched this drama. And we're close to the end of 69- day odyssey. The 32nd miner is about to reach safety, moments away from the surface, 29-year-old Ariel Ticona, became a father for the first time while he was trapped in the mine. His daughter, born September 14th, named Esperanza, Spanish for "Hope." Let's go right to our Gary Tuchman outside the San Jose mine near Copiapo, Chile.
Gary, what is the scene right there? Tell us what's going on right now.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Eliot, there's great joy in the desert in northern Chile tonight, and throughout the universe because this valiant effort to save the lives of 33 miners appears to have succeeded. Thirty-one of the miners are now back on earth, back on terra firma with their families.
And as you said, one miner is being brought up right now. There's this wheel behind me, you see, when the wheel turns that means that the capsule is on its way up. Within about seven minutes we expect miner number 32 to be up here with...
(AUDIO GAP)
TUCHMAN: ... 21 hours, and then shortly after that, the final...
(AUDIO GAP)
TUCHMAN: ... miner number 33 chose to be left back. He was the...
(AUDIO GAP)
TUCHMAN: ... Urzua Irribarren, and he is significant because he was the...
(AUDIO GAP)
TUCHMAN: ... knew that there were men trapped under ground. For 17 days, no one knew if these men were alive after this collapsed mine, tons of rubble fell in. The assumption among many was that all of these men were dead. Seventeen days after the collapse a probe was lowered.
(AUDIO GAP)
TUCHMAN: ... were fine, all 33 of us.
(AUDIO GAP)
TUCHMAN: They heard the voices...
(AUDIO GAP)
TUCHMAN: ... he says, we are fine, we are hoping the...
(AUDIO GAP)
PARKER: OK, we're having some technical difficulties. So we're going to go now to the telephone and talk to Davitt McAteer, former assistant secretary for mine safety under President Clinton, and the lead investigator of the Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia.
Davitt, thanks for joining us. First, give us your assessment, what are we seeing in Chile right now?
DAVITT MCATEER, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR MINE SAFETY: Well, this is a remarkable, unprecedented event where we have recovered 32 of 33 miners who have been down longer than any time in the history of the world that I know, and down deeper than any time that we've ever been able to bring miners back.
It suggests a new world. It suggests an ability to bring people back and an ability to go into the ground and get people who are trapped in these circumstances. It's phenomenal. And I'm -- I'm overjoyed with the fact that with the 32nd victim on his way out, I only hope they get to the 33rd victim here in a minute.
SPITZER: Hey, Davitt, this is Eliot Spitzer. You know, this is obviously one of those joyous stories amidst all of the bad news in the world. This is just wonderful thing to watch. You've been involved in mine safety and explorations, recoveries like this. Give us a sense of magnitude. In the past, what was the deepest we had gone? I mean, how does this compare? Is this five times deeper, twice as deep?
MCATEER: Well, we have gone down 800, 900 feet, 1,000 feet, that has been typical. But we're at 2,500 feet here. But the more important thing is that we've done a large number of people -- 33 people, and we've done it over a significant, long period of time. What this event suggests is that we can -- if we can get to them, we can -- and if they can -- if they can survive the initial event, and we get to them, we can keep them alive, and then we can figure out ways to get them.
I mean, this is -- this is a remarkable turn of events in terms of mining that we have been able to -- we, I don't mean us, but the Chileans have been able to marshal all of the technology in the world, many of it -- much of it coming from the United States, and bring them out with technology that didn't apply before this.
This suggests to us that we need to be adapting this kind of thing to the mining issues around the world.
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: Can I ask a question here?
MCATEER: Remember, we have 5 million to 7 million miners.
SPITZER: Well, one of the amazing things, to me, was that we actually were able to figure out where they were. How was it, given when you look at diagrams of this mine and the back and forth, how did we even know where to begin to drill? How were those first communications set up? That was a remarkable thing.
MCATEER: Well, that -- I mean, we -- it was the eighth or ninth drill-down that we hit them, that we found them. And that's an important part. We need to do a better job of being able to locate people. And that is the part of the Sago disaster and it's part of the disaster today.
The experience today is that we really must have an ability to locate people underground. We must push technology to its frontier and we must say we've got to get these people down so that we can location them.
Once we can locate them, obviously from this experience, we can get to them. We have the ability and a willingness -- I mean, this -- the fact that we've made this recovery in a short period of time as compared to the December event suggests we're able to get there very quickly. But we have to get...
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: Do you want me to go to Patrick or do you want me to go to the -- just...
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: Davitt, thank you so much. We're getting word that the 32nd miner is about to come through the surface. One of those amazing moments when you see the "Fenix," as they call it, emerge out of there and everybody screams for joy. And it is just wonderful.
So are we going to Patrick now? All right. We're going to listen to what actually is happening in Copiapo. It is just an amazing sight. Let's take a listen.
(SPEAKING IN SPANISH)
SPITZER: That is the wife of the 32nd miner who is about to come up, that is Ariel Ticona. And you can see the excitement, the expectations in her eyes, it's unbelievable.
PARKER: That is a narrow opening. Look at that. It's hard to imagine being in that tube coming up that shaft all this time.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: We had a discussion about this, 21.5 inches in diameter. I was trying to figure out what that circumference then is.
PARKER: You'd have to be a small person to fit there.
SPITZER: Here we go.
PARKER: All right.
SPITZER: This is...
PARKER: Awesome.
SPITZER: And she gave birth, what was the date? September 14th she gave birth to their first daughter.
All right.
PARKER: (INAUDIBLE) that's a happy face.
SPITZER: Tears of joy. Notice, is he wearing sunglasses? (INAUDIBLE) been wearing the sunglasses to shield their eyes from the sun or I guess it's nighttime, so still...
PARKER: Still the lights have got to be bright and shocking, after being underground for 69 days.
SPITZER: And only one left. I guess there is one miner left who -- Luis, who will be coming up in a bit. He volunteered to be last.
PARKER: Right. He was the foreman, the shift foreman.
SPITZER: Yes.
PARKER: And this lady, when she gave birth, they decided to change the name of the baby. They had already agreed on a name and decided to change it to Esperanza, which means "Hope" in Spanish.
(CROSSTALK)
CROWLEY: And he asked that, apparently.
PARKER: Yes, he asked it.
(CROSSTALK) CROWLEY: ... I guess went they're asking...
(CROSSTALK)
GROUP: Chi-le! Chi-chi-chi-! Le-le-le! Los mineros de Chile!
SPITZER: Elizabeth Segovia, the wife, is waiting there. It's a nice intimate moment, the whole world watching.
PARKER: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
SPITZER: You almost feel sorry for them. They know everybody in the world is watching this first embrace.
PARKER: I don't feel sorry for them. They've got some major books, contracts, television appearance, interviews coming up.
SPITZER: Amazing. She can remove the hard hat right now. Pure joy.
PARKER: What's amazing, this is in contrast to so many other disasters with mining. This is just remarkable. As we heard a few minutes ago, it's a remarkable feat of technology.
PARKER: He looks pretty darn good for having been down there all this time, doesn't he?
SPITZER: Yes.
PARKER: Did these guys all shave before they came up?
(LAUGHTER)
SPITZER: A couple days in the hospital here.
PARKER: You expect a beard or something, wouldn't you?
SPITZER: The Chilean president who's been there throughout, I saw him, I guess we all saw him last night, when the first miner came up and he's been there throughout this exercise. A moment of great national pride and joy.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: They're running on almost 24 hours at this point.
SPITZER: Yes.
CROWLEY: I'm assuming he has some place to go.
SPITZER: You know what, the adrenaline that is pumping through their systems is powerful.
CROWLEY: You don't get many moments like this as a politician, do you? SPITZER: No. You don't get many moments like this in any form of life. That is just --
PARKER: 32nd miner is out.
(APPLAUSE)
SPITZER: Pure, unmitigated joy.
Now, in addition, we should just let everybody know, in addition to the 33rd miner down there, there are five rescuers who will be brought up after the 33rd miner's brought up, obviously.
We're going to take a quick commercial break. And back in just a few moments to watch and wait for the number 33rd. The end of this exciting moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: And welcome back. We hope you all enjoyed that unbelievable moment where the 32nd miner, Ariel Ticona, came up -- his wife who had just given birth on September 14 to Esperanza, which means hope in Spanish. Their first daughter, first child. Unbelievable moment, moment of joy and national unity for Chile. Just can't imagine this.
CROWLEY: What's been really interesting I think and what's sort of gripped people internationally, has been that everybody's got a little story. Every time a miner comes up, it's oh, his wife gave birth and they named her hope.
We have the shift foreman, who is coming last of the miners.
SPITZER: Right.
CROWLEY: As you pointed out, there's five folks down there that were sent down there to the recovery crew. And this is a man, he was the first one they talked to when they finally reached them and he said, we are well and hoping that you will rescue us.
PARKER: And he's also credited with everyone's survival, those first 17 days when they had no contact with the world. A huge help to ration food.
CROWLEY: We are all suckers for these kind of great stories.
PARKER: Yes.
SPITZER: And that is the picture of the foreman who will be the last up. And he volunteered for that, kind of like the captain of the ship saying I'm the last one off when the ship is floundering. That is an act of not only heroism, but really valor, and something you admire in folks and saying if anybody is not going to make it, it will be I. So this is just at every level a story of great heroism, technology, kind of like Captain Sully.
Candy, thank you for bringing that to mind in the great famous landing on the Hudson River --
CROWLEY: Yes.
SPITZER: -- where people step up and at the right moment things happen the right way. Just wonderful to see.
PARKER: Well, not to mention the buoyancy of the human spirit.
SPITZER: That's right.
PARKER: Think about those guys down there for all of that time, having to keep each other up and motivated to stay live.
SPITZER: That's right.
PARKER: You know, that's a remarkable experience that not many people can even relate to.
SPITZER: That's right. In a sea of darkness, a lot of -- you know, a little ray of optimism here with everything out there which is great news.
PARKER: Exactly. It's just thrilling.
All right. We're going to back to Gary Tuchman now. He's on the ground in Chile.
Gary, tell us what's going on now.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kathleen, we're about 30 minutes away, I would estimate from an incredibly happy ending to this amazing story. Thirty-two miners, safe and sound with their families. One miner on his way up. It's going to be tremendous when he arrives here about 17 or 18 minutes from now, I estimate.
Now, we're able to estimate that pretty accurately because we've been here pretty much for all 33 miners' arrival. It started 12:10 local time. Chile is one hour from Eastern time, four hours from Pacific time. So 12:10, on October 13th, the first miner safely came up. And there was so much tension here, and we all knew that they had checked this out that this capsule was reliable, but they had never tested it with a human being before. They sent it up and down the 2,300 foot chute into the tunnel without a human being in it and it worked fine.
But yesterday, when they sent the mine safety expert first down the tunnel, we all were just watching very carefully and very quietly. They were allowing us journalists to be on this perch where we are now the closest civilians. The safety experts are down there, but we're the closest civilians to the site.
Ironically, we don't see it as well as you do or as our viewers because we don't have monitors to see the close-up shots. But as I said before, it's kind of like being at a football game. You get the atmosphere and the aura, and it's incredible being here and witnessing this human drama. But there is a lot of tension as the mine safety expert was going down. Everyone started clapping when he successfully arrived. Then they put the first miner in the capsule. And we waited and we waited.
We were told it would take between 15 and 17 minutes for him to come up, and it seemed like it took two hours. Finally, after 15 minutes, we saw the capsule pop up. He came out. His grateful family was there, and we knew that this could work with a human being.
And then number two. And number three. And then there was a little problem with the capsule, they had to take the wheels off to fix them up. There's a problem with the door. There was a problem with the oxygen canisters. But nothing was insurmountable, nothing that endangered any of the miners. And as the day wore on, and we're now at the 21 1/2 hours, we started forgetting about the tension. It seemed to work very well. We knew what we weren't going to forget about, what we weren't going to get tired of was the emotion. And each time, I mean it's amazing. I've gotten so many e-mails from friends and people I don't know who say I just can't see enough of this. Every story is a little different, as you were talking about before.
SPITZER: Pretty much so.
TUCHMAN: The families came up, they hugged, they kissed, they cried, they're exulted. You see the family, you see the wife stand there as the capsule comes up. We have just been told the capsule now is almost at the bottom of the mine. And that's something remarkable, too. We did not. We were not told that. None of the news media was told that the Chilean government made a decision to take live pictures and live audio from the bottom of the mine. That's never been done before. A half a mile below, the pictures are taken and it's been quite an experience. We're only minutes away from all the miners being safe and sound.
Kathleen, Eliot, back to you.
SPITZER: Thank you, Gary. In fact, we're told, we're just about to see on the screen here and everybody at home can see it, the Phoenix, the capsule, is now about to enter the cavity which is where the miners have been for 69 days. And just so everybody understands, there's only one miner left. The other folks you're seeing are the rescue workers who came down in the capsule to assist and, of course, they will head back up as soon as the 33rd miner is on the way. Kind of like science fiction movie but it's real.
PARKER: Yes. I still can't get over this capsule. I'm fixated on it. And also, the fact that when they go up this opening to the surface of the earth, you know, it's not just a straight shot. In fact, these fellows had to take a special diet to keep them from getting sick, as the capsule rotates 10 to 12 times on its way up. And you're in this thing that's, what, 21 feet, 21 feet tall and -- not 21 feet. What was the measurement? Thirteen feet tall and 21 inches in diameter.
SPITZER: Right. Not a lot of space in there.
PARKER: I mean, just imagine being captured in that space.
SPITZER: Kind of like a New York City apartment.
PARKER: I'm claustrophobic, so it's -- I'm sure it's a small inconvenience to get out of there.
SPITZER: There it is.
CROWLEY: There it is. We saw -- there it is coming down. It's right in the middle of the screen. Hard to miss.
PARKER: Yes.
CROWLEY: We saw them sort of celebrating. They were down there sort of anticipating, they're shaking hands and sort of fist pumping.
SPITZER: You know, it strikes me, this is kind of like when I was a little bit young to remember when it was happening but the movie is so powerful, "Apollo 13," you know, when we had a similar crisis with our astronauts circling the moon and, of course, we couldn't -- didn't know if we'd be able to recover them, and then when everybody did come back safely, unbelievable moment of national unity.
PARKER: All right. Here goes the last miner now climbing into the Phoenix, Luis Urzua, who is 54 years old, the shift foreman. Again, he was the first voice heard after verbal contact was made with the miners and his words were "We are well, and hoping that you will rescue us."
SPITZER: Now how long -- it seems to me that the rides up and down have been going faster.
PARKER: They're getting better at it, I guess.
(CROSSTALK)
33rd time, it gets quicker.
SPITZER: You know, and I think it's also comfort that the 14 minutes one way is what we're being told. Or that's --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
SPITZER: -- you know, to go -- somebody better at numbers than I will figure out how many miles an hour that is, but that's an incredible journey.
PARKER: An incredible journey. Well, this foreman, just to tell you a little bit more about him, his leadership was credited for the miners' survival during the 17 days when they were closed off completely from the outside world. Then after the collapse, he organized rationing the little bit of food they had until the men were found by the rescuers. He also used his topography skills to draw detailed maps of the mine layout for rescuers on the surface.
SPITZER: So I guess everybody should remember those boy scout things we learn as kids about having to draw --
PARKER: Absolutely.
SPITZER: It's kind of like "Journey to the Center of the Earth." Remember that movie?
CROWLEY: But how did they see his map?
PARKER: Well, they had -- I guess when they finally were able to lower things back and forth.
CROWLEY: They already kind of know where it was.
SPITZER: We're going to have to wait for the movie to figure that part out.
CROWLEY: Exactly. But this -- I mean, watching -- this is just an incredible -- we've been able to see so much through pictures. I'm a little bit reminded of a not as happy occasion the BP oil spill when everybody went down scuba diving and you could see live pictures. And now, these are live pictures of this guy getting into what looks like a time capsule.
SPITZER: Everything is in real-time. Everything from the war, to recoveries like this, to the BP oil spill. We can get cameras everywhere transmitted to the world and it is --
CROWLEY: There he goes.
SPITZER: Here we go. He's now inside the capsule, the Phoenix, as it is called, a great name. The Phoenix always rises.
PARKER: So is there already an "I love Luis Urzua" Web site, Facebook page?
CROWLEY: There certainly should be. Maybe he and Captain Sully will get together.
PARKER: That's what I was thinking.
SPITZER: The two leaders of the -- of those who went down and survived.
PARKER: Yes. Well, these fellows are going to not only be welcomed by their families, but they're being welcomed by some fairly lucrative television interview offers.
SPITZER: Well deserved. Well deserved.
PARKER: Yes.
I think I read a comment. One of them said, well, maybe we won't ever have to work again, never back to the mines.
SPITZER: You know, that will be one of the more interesting questions, whether they want to. And this is -- PARKER: I think they want to.
SPITZER: There's been a lot of conversation among, you know, the psychological sort of those who study these things whether they'd be willing to.
And those applause we're hearing, I gather from down in the cavity itself.
PARKER: Yes, I hear you. We're going to go to the hospital soon and talk to -- reporter Patrick Oppmann is standing by at the hospital. Let's go have a chat with him.
Hi, Patrick.
PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we're experiencing --
PARKER: Tell us what's going on there, please.
OPPMANN: Good evening to you. Experiencing amazing moment on top of so many amazing moments here.
You have 17 of these rescued miners in the hospital here behind us, in the hometown of many of these miners. And as these rescues have been playing out over the last hours, we started hearing cheers. We started hearing that cry, go miners of Chile, go Chile miners. And that's up on the second floor, many of those miners are watching the coverage.
You have to expect these men wouldn't take it easy, even though they're in the hospital on bed rest. Many of their families are down in the lobby. They're watching this intently. Over the last few minutes as Luis Urzua started to get into the capsule, things got very, very quiet. As soon as he's raised in the surface, you'll hear an explosion. As we've heard over the last hour or two, with every successful rescue, you heard an explosion of chanting, of happiness, of joy here. And as 17 of these miners have been brought here by army helicopter to this hospital where they will be kept several days, they're getting every imaginable test, every imaginable --
SPITZER: There you see it.
PARKER: There it goes. It doesn't look real, though, does it?
SPITZER: No.
CROWLEY: Patrick, I don't know if you can see, it's Candy Crowley. I don't know if you can see it, but literally the Phoenix just lifted up going up through the mountainside, disappearing from our view headed up, that, of course, being the last miner down there. We're still seeing rescue workers. Let me ask you about those that are in the hospital. What sort of problems are the doctors seeing?
OPPMANN: They're seeing dental problems. A number of these men are going to have surgeries, dental surgeries over the next few days. They have some eye problems. Some of them have to have some eye surgeries over the next few days. And -- but it's really small things. The Chilean health minister, Jaime Manalich, came up today and said amazingly none of these men have significant problems. And several of them, Candy, will be released tomorrow. They're going to be walking out of this hospital, released to their families. Really given a clean bill of health.
You have to remember that during the long days and months in the mine, they're always seen around (INAUDIBLE). You know, the last two weeks, they've been clearing tons of rubble that have fallen down with that drilling. Some of the men had been jogging both for their mental well-being and to lose weight. You know, we were told that several of the men lost up to 20 pounds to fit into that rescue capsule. If there's ever anybody who had a reason to go on a diet, these men did. And as we've seen all of them now, Luis Urzua, rising to the surface, were able to fit into that rescue capsule. And I'm sure when he is free, we'll be hearing from his colleagues here over my shoulder who have been watching this coverage very intently. I'm told that every patient in this hospital, including the 17 miners, are watching the coverage, are celebrating with each success, each rescue that takes place.
SPITZER: Patrick, thank you so much. I think we're going back to Gary Tuchman.
Apparently, the speed with which that canister, the Phoenix is rising is just accelerating every time. It's only going to be a couple of minutes until it breaks through and we will have the scene of this remarkable conclusion. So, Gary, if you can give us the update and you can see that cable just flying through that pulley, foot by foot, getting the Phoenix closer to the surface. Gary, what is going on?
TUCHMAN: By my estimate, Eliot, based upon being here for the entire day is 55 minutes after the hour, we will see that rocket- looking device up, up, and the 33rd and final miner, and these miners are all world-record holders, because no one has ever survived this long underground, 68 or 69 days depending on the order they came out, no one's ever been underground for 10 weeks which these men were. But we're going to come to an incredibly happy conclusion. And you will hear applause and celebration, not only here in the desert in Chile but all over the world. And it's incredible how people all over the world have been watching that, not just CNN television ratings but television ratings here in Chile and probably ratings in other countries in South America have been absolutely incredible because it's very rare that we have a hard news, breaking story that's also a good news story.
Yes, we do good news stories. They're usually and fortunately feature stories and I certainly hear from a lot of people, how come you don't do more good news? Well, we're doing it now, folks. Over the last 23 hours, this has been the ultimate good news story.
We certainly necessarily know that in the beginning. There was a lot of tension. People were scared. Families here in Camp Esperanza, to bring up that term again, Esperanza, the name of that baby, camp hope in English, it's the name of the camp when the families weeks ago, many of them vowed they would not leave here until their loves ones came out.
SPITZER: Gary.
TUCHMAN: Indeed, today, one particular mother said she will never leave here until she sees her son -- yes, go ahead.
SPITZER: Have they answered the question how they're able to go so much more rapidly now? As you just experienced confidence in the --
TUCHMAN: Yes.
PARKER: It looks like quite a party there. Do you have any sense of how many people are there?
TUCHMAN: Well, first of all, I can tell you about this device. This device can go four times faster than originally started but they purposely went slow in the beginning. They didn't want to sacrifice safety. But they realized they can increase the speed by one-third. So the 15-minute trip is now a 10-minute trip and that's why. There's no compromise on the safety. They can go faster in that in case of an emergency or in case they wanted to.
As far as the people here, usually there's no one here. This is a completely barren desert in northern Chile. Just workers who come here, they have to drive 45 minutes to the nearest city. But now there are more than 2,000 people here, family members, members of the media, security officials, jam-packed. And I will tell you, once all the miners are out of here, accounted for, they're going to close up that hole. That will eternally be empty where they had lived for the last 10 weeks and this little tent city will pack up and it will be no more. But it will all be for a good cause because all these miners survived.
All we have left after the 33rd miner comes up, the shift supervisor, is a five mine safety officials. We don't want to forget about them. This is still a risky ride, so we don't want to forget them. But they've done a great job making everything organized down there, making sure no one was scared, all is concerned, that everyone is packed properly. And they've done a great job and this has worked out really well and has really become an inspirational story.
SPITZER: Gary, I don't know if you can see it but we're seeing a needle moving along some sort of measure. Do you know what that is? Is that the feet below or meters below the surface? You may not see --
TUCHMAN: I want to show you is how close they are, how close they are to the capsule reaching the top. When that red arrow gets in between the two lines that they have on there, that's when it pokes through to the top. So it's just an indication of how far away the capsule is from getting to the earth.
SPITZER: Gary, thank you for that coverage, answering our questions. We'll get back to you in a couple of minutes when the Phoenix is about to come through. And no doubt, there will be an eruption. There's one happy president and a lot of happy miners. And deservedly so.
Let's just listen in to the celebration.
CROWD: Chi-le! Chi-chi-chi-! Le-le-le! Los mineros de Chile!
PARKER: All right. Any minute now we're going to see the 33rd miner coming up the rescue shaft. He's got a crowd of about 2,000 people waiting for him. It's going to be quite a reception. I feel like there should be, you know, like a Times Square countdown here.
SPITZER: They're all looking down. Can't quite believe it.
CROWLEY: I can't quite believe it. It's pretty amazing.
SPITZER: You know we haven't seen, the most amazing thing was when you look at the diagram of the mine itself, it went back and forth. This was not an easy mine to navigate. It was just, you know, covered a huge swath of territory down there. That's why drilling down over and over was --
PARKER: Was problematic.
SPITZER: Hit and miss.
PARKER: Yes.
CROWLEY: It's also, in the end, it wasn't just about getting down there. It was about preparing these men for what they would go through. It was about having the hospital setting. Nothing was left to chance on this, other than the elements, which you have no control over.
SPITZER: Here we go.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE) (Speaking in a foreign language)
(APPLAUSE)
PARKER: I couldn't catch all of what he said but I caught the last couple of words. He was saying, you know, we prevailed over imperfect conditions. That was the president of Chile addressing the 33rd miner, Luis Urzua, who just came out of the mine shaft in the Phoenix capsule. There he is. 54-year-old Luis Urzua.
SPITZER: The foreman.
PARKER: The foreman. The boss.
SPITZER: Acting as if --
PARKER: Last man out.
SPITZER: As Candy observed, kind of like a sporting event. Carrying the national flag and he's a hero, and deservingly so.
PARKER: The men are cheering, the women are weeping. CROWLEY: That's right. A sporting event with real stakes to them.
PARKER: Yes, exactly.
SPITZER: Well, Larry, are you watching somewhere else in CNN. Larry King, we're calling out to you. We know you're going to join us in a minute or two, for the continuation of the saga.
LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": We did a lot of this last night, Eliot. Never been anything like it.
SPITZER: Happy story. Everybody can see Larry. Larry faded out, but there he was on the screen. Always good to see Larry King on the screen with the Chilean president. And Larry has been talking to us through this for last night and as he has for so many years and all the great stories.
Larry, can you remember a story like this that was so happy?
PARKER: Thank you, God.
KING: We didn't have live television for the landing on the moon. There's never been, as I said last night, Eliot and Kathleen, to my knowledge, Candy, never been a story like this ever. And to think this came from a mine half a mile below the earth by satellite to us, unbelievable.
SPITZER: Larry, thanks so much. You know, we are sitting around thinking, if there was anything like it, the only thing we could come up with was perhaps "Apollo 13," which was a similar -- we lost Larry. Well, he'll be back in 30 seconds.
CROWLEY: They'll find him really quickly.
SPITZER: We never lose Larry.
CROWLEY: No, we don't.
But this is -- I mean, really, we talked about it before, that is one happy politician. I mean, on a human level, I'm sure he's very excited, but this is nothing better for a politician than to be part of a happy news story.
PARKER: Yes. Exactly.
SPITZER: Nothing better for a nation.
CROWLEY: Yes. Absolutely.
PARKER: We're happy to end on such a happy note. Thank you all for joining us. We'll be back tomorrow night. Stay tuned for Larry King.
