INTUITION HELPED THE CHILEAN MINERS

When the world celebrated the October 13, 2010 release of the 33 trapped Chilean miners, little note was taken of the key role that intuition played in the drama. A search from half a mile above using outdated maps. The 100-year old San Jose gold and copper mine collapsed on August 5, 2010, leaving 33 men trapped 2,300 feet under Chile’s Atacama Desert. A group of miners that were near the mine entrance when the shaft collapsed below them escaped to tell of the saga unfolding further underground. With communications to the buried miners cut off, there were many unanswerable questions: Were the miners alive? Where were they? What was the condition of the mine shaft they were in? How could they be reached in time even if they could be found? The mine company could accomplish the rescue. Chilean President Sebastian Pinera understood that it was up to the government to rescue the trapped miners: “The private company that owns the mine was not able to undertake the search and rescue. So it was either us, the government, or nobody.” The search was begun by drilling a series of 6 inch wide boreholes into different areas where the outdated maps of the mine suggested that the miners might be. But the first results of the blind search showed no signs of life. After 17 days of silence, hope for finding the miners alive began to fade. Intuition when the search seemed hopeless. President Pinera had the responsibility to determine when hope was lost. When asked later by CNN about why he persisted as the groping search efforts proved fruitless, he said: “I had a kind of inner voice that told me, ‘Keep searching, keep searching, don’t give up.’” The search effort went on; the miners were found; and the rescue successfully concluded—all to the credit of the miners, Chile, the American companies that provided the rescue technology, and, not the least, to an inner voice that told Chile’s President to keep searching. Listening to intuition. Intuition speaks to us every day. It is always on. And when we can remove our blocks to hearing our own inner voice speak to us, miracles can happen, like the miracle that happened for the Chilean miners.