TEN OF THE 30 CHILEAN MINERS who are still being treated in hospital following their rescue this week are set to be discharged today.
Three of the miners left hospital yesterday.
The 33 men were pulled out of the mine one by one this week after spending 10 weeks below the earth’s surface. The names of the 10 who will be released today have not been announced.
One of the freed men, Mario Gomez, 63, is being treated for acute pneumonia, but Chile’s health minister Jaime Manalich is quoted by the BBC as saying Gomez is doing well. Three other men will require dental surgery before leaving hospital.
The miners continue to wear dark glasses to protect their eyes from sunlight, and Minister Manalich said they were expected to face a hard time ahead psychologically following their release.
AP reports that the 33 men are understood to be refusing to publicly share the experiences of their time in the mine so that they can all share evenly in the income generated by media interest in their story.
Miner’s daughter Ximena Alejandra Reygadas said that the men agreed to divide all their earnings from interviews and appearances, and added that her father told her that she couldn’t speak to the media without the miners’ permission.
Pricey pod?
Meanwhile, memorabilia experts have suggested that the NASA-designed capsule in which the miners travelled individually to the surface could be worth up to $1m (just under €715,000). The capsule, called the Phoenix Two, was built by the Chilean Navy and is owned by Chilean state mining company Codelco.
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