Chilean miners evacuation priority

October 5, 2010 11:54 AM

Why would they evacuate the able before the weak?

In this article, this quote can be found:

"Once that is complete, a commando from the Chilean navy will be lowered into the mine to evaluate the miners' health and divide them into three groups: the able, the weak, the most able. The men will be evacuated in that order."

Can anyone with a military or rescue service background explain why they would evacuate the able before the weak?

posted by lholladay to Health & Fitness (5 answers total)

Best answer: Because there is a possibility that the rescue capsule will get stuck. If that happens the miner inside will have to climb back down the narrow shaft on a rope. This is most likely to happen early on if it happens at all, so they want to be sure that the first few guys they pull out can make the climb if needed.
posted by atrazine at 11:56 AM on October 5, 2010 [7 favorites]

Response by poster: That sounds entirely reasonable.
posted by lholladay at 12:26 PM on October 5, 2010

A more general reasoning would be that the able bodied can help rescue themselves, and thus speed their evacuation, providing only a small delay for evacuating the weak. But evacuating the weak could be a slow process, and making the able wait for the weak may increase the number of weak if any of the able deteriorate during the wait. And the very able would be much less likely to deteriorate while waiting for their turn.

More specifically, atrazine's reasoning sounds good to me.
posted by jpeacock at 12:52 PM on October 5, 2010

My first thought was the same as jpeacock's - the able could become weak if there are problems or delays, but the most-able probably will not become weak and can wait if they must. So you save the most able for last, since they can hack it and can help if something goes wrong.
posted by molecicco at 1:03 PM on October 5, 2010

This sounds like a variation on standard triage practices. In a mass casualty situation, victims are separated into the "walking wounded" who require minimal care, the "seriously injured" who require immediate intervention, and the "terminal cases" who are beyond help (actual terminology may vary). In this situation, the "seriously injured" would be given priority over those who can likely help themselves and those for whom efforts would be futile.

In this case, I would guess that the "most able" would be those who could most risk additional time in the mine, while the "weak" are those who would not be able to help themselves should they run into problems during the initial phase of evacuation.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:06 PM on October 5, 2010 [1 favorite]