The men from the mine and their lovers, wives and mistresses
A third — the oldest — is 63 and has spent half a century working the mines. A fourth had a wife and a mistress too.
Johnny Barrios Rojas’s rescue was among the most anticipated — if only to see who would be there to greet him.
No 21 of the men pulled from the collapsed mine, Barrios gained notoriety as the man who had two women at Camp Hope — his wife of 28 years Marta Salinas, and his mistress of four, Susana Valenzuela.
Marta Salinas apparently knew nothing of the affair until the two women ran into each other amid the tents pitched by family members anxiously holding vigil — and a very public spat ensued.
When Barrios, 50, emerged from the rescue tube, behind him, smiling widely and waiting for him to notice her stood Valenzuela. She gave him a long kiss, weeping into the shoulder of his jumpsuit as he whispered into her ear. His wife was nowhere to be seen.
Dubbed “el enfermero” — the nurse — Barrios was the miners’ medic during the ordeal, dispensing medication sent in by health officials.
He had promised her if he got through this alive they would finally have their church wedding — after three decades, four daughters and seven grandchildren.
So when 63-year-old Mario Gomez emerged, grasped a Chilean flag and dropped to his knees to pray, Lilianett Ramirez was the one who pulled him up from the ground and held him.
The promise of a proper wedding came in the first letter Gomez had ever written to his wife during their 30-year marriage.
Read on television by President Sebastian Pinera, Gomez’s “Dear Lila” letter was filled with faith and determination, and showed the world the miners were holding strong.
A miner since he was 12 and as the most experienced, using maps and diagrams, he became “the GPS we needed down there”, rescuers said.
Omar Reygadas became a great-grandfather for the fourth time while trapped underground.
The 56-year-old electrician had survived other mine collapses and was said to have exclaimed “Not again!” when he and the others were trapped by the August 5 collapse.
Reygadas later helped organise life below the surface, helped calm the nervous and get what they needed from authorities outside.
“He is in charge of ensuring that we are well,” one miner wrote to his wife.
Jimmy Sanchez, the youngest at 19, proposed to his 17-year-old girlfriend while he was trapped below, though his father urged him to reconsider. The couple have a four-month- old daughter.
“You are just 19, and have so much life ahead of you, to enjoy, to know people,” read the letter Eugenio Sanchez sent to his son. “It cannot be that because you are now closed up in the mine that you are going to throw away all your plans.
“It’s fine that you want to be with Helencita and everything... but get married? Well, marriage is a really serious thing.”
But girlfriend Helen Avalos said she was sure they would be wed. “He has to keep his word,” she said. But first, “We’ll have an enormous party.”
Jose Henriquez turned to his Christian faith while he was underground, forming a prayer group that met several times a day and asking to have 33 bibles sent down the narrow passage.
Nevertheless, the 56-year-old father of twin daughters had one vice he hoped the time underground would cure. His wife Hettiz Berrios was said to be happy when her husband asked authorities to send him food rather than cigarettes. “He’s trying to stop puffing... Hopefully he’ll do it,” she said.
Former Chilean national soccer player Franklin Lobos 53, briefly bounced a football on his foot and knee as he stepped from the capsule. Then he embraced relatives and President Pinera.
He was known in Chile for playing in the team that qualified for the 1984 Olympics in LA.
He was the driver of a truck that takes miners to and from the mine and was in the mine with the group he ferries when the collapse occurred.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
