COPIAPO, Chile: The 33 men trapped deep inside a northern Chilean mine have been given permission to smoke after improvements were made in the air ventilation.Okay, now the headline:
Stubbed out: ideal chance for miners to quit smokingWhy without the collapse of the mine these men might have missed a valuable opportunity!
Further:
''We are not going to give a pack of cigarettes to each of them, but rather a reasonable amount,'' said Jorge Diaz, a medical doctor on the rescue team.Um, WHAT?
Requests for wine have so far not been agreed to.
7 comments:
Requests for wine have so far not been agreed to.
I guess they have yet to find bottles that will fit in the food and beverage delivery tube.
Whoops, we sent down a bottle and it got stuck and they all choked to death.
Tiny can of wine may be the solution.
Oh, come on. I realize mining is in many ways representative of old technology, but how hard would it be to put a tube down there, pump beer through it at lunch time, wine later in the day, maybe a little cognac at bedtime.
That said, I'm pretty sure that smoking in a mineshaft is a very, very bad idea. I guess the theory is that if you blow up you at least won't die of lung cancer...
I would think that consuming alcohol in conditions of extended duress would simultaneously reduce inhibitions and debilitate reasoning leading to less than harmonious results.
For a lot of Chileans red wine is fundamental to lunch and dinner. Perhaps the miners, trying to make things down there as "normal" as possible, would like it to feel they are having a proper meal.
Denying an easily-fulfilled request of guys so close to death seems inhuman whatever the culture is.
Those guys are real organized and seem to have their shit together, so yeah, I would say give them the damn wine. According to this El Mercurio (in Spanish) article from a few days back, the idea was to send down empanadas and a little wine to celebrate Chilean Independence Day (September 18, 200th anniversary this year). The health minister says yes, the psychologist in charge says no.
Post a Comment