The First Man Up from the Depths

When the Phoenix capsule broke through the surface of the San José mine on October 13, 2010, Florencio Ávalos stepped out into the Chilean night air — the first of thirty-three miners rescued from 2,300 feet underground. For sixty-nine days, those men had lived in darkness, uncertain whether rescue would ever come. But when Ávalos emerged, everything changed. The shaft held.…