Miraculous survival tale retold

By Huang Zhilin in Guiyang (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-18 08:30

A medical worker attends to one of the three survivors who have been trapped in a flooded mine for 25 days at a makeshift tent in Qinglong county, southwest China's Guizhou Province Sunday, July 12, 2009. [Xinhua]
More photos on the miracle survival

The 35-year-old miner survived an unbelievable 25 days in the darkness of a flooded coalmine in Qinglong county, Guizhou province.

But media reports of his miraculous survival, along with those of two other miners, have made life more difficult for him. The stories remind him of his dreadful experience, the dark pit, hunger, the rushing water and above all the fear of death, Wang Yiming, of the psychology department of Guiyang medical college's hospital, said on Friday.

The accident in Qinglong buried 11 miners on June 17. Two more were killed when water flooded the mine.

Wang Kuangwei, Wang Quanjie and Zhao Weixing (both 36) have been admitted to the hospital's intensive care unit. The three narrated their tale of survival to Wang Yiming, their psychological counselor.

Their story in Wang Yiming's words:

All the three miners thought they would die when water first gushed into the mine on June 17. But driven by human instinct, they began looking for a higher place. They don't know how long it took to find one.

The first day was spent in hope that rescuers would find them. But as hope receded, hunger took over and they began eating tree bark they found floating on the water. But after a couple of days they couldn't eat them anymore.

They didn't feel hungry after the fifth day, anyway, but kept collecting water leaking into the mine shaft from rocks to drink.

Since one of them had a watch, they knew how many days they had been trapped till the 15th day. But then the watch stopped. That's why after being rescued, they felt they had spent 30 days underground.

The three miners are close, because they are from the same village in Ruyang, Henan province. In fact Wang Kuangwei and Wang Quanjie are related.

The close bond among them helped them survive - they kept encouraging each other to believe rescuers would be looking for them. They kept telling each other they would survive if they didn't fall prey to starvation or the rushing waves of water.

The three spoke as little as possible to avoid exhaustion and slept most of the time. They switched on their headlamps only after hearing sounds that seemed like those of rescuers to ensure that they didn't run out of power.

In fact, it was the light from one of the lamps that drew rescuers to them on July 12, said Chen Qing, deputy secretary-general of Qianxinan prefecture, which administers Qinglong.

Though Wang Quanjie and Zhao have been sleeping well, Wang Yiming said she is not sure if they would show symptoms of trauma later. "Many people show symptoms of trauma even a month later."