When, one by one, the miners trapped in Chile were finally hoisted slowly to the surface in a specially designed escape capsule, they were breathing oxygen supplied by four Luxfer L7X one cubic-meter cylinders, donated by Indura, a long-time Luxfer (www.luxfercylinders. com) customer. These men had endured the longest underground entrapment in human history, and it took nearly two days to bring them all to the surface.
The miners were brought up via a shaft that was carefully drilled to hold the 3.95-meter-high (13-foot) cylindrical steel rescue capsule that was just wide enough to hold one man. Named the “Fénix” (in English, “Phoenix,” after the mythical bird said to rise from its own ashes), the capsule was fitted with an oxygen tube connected to Luxfer cylinders made from Luxfer’s patented L7X® higherstrength aluminum alloy and filled to 3,000 psig. The capsule was painted white, red, and blue, the colors of the Chilean flag. Each miner wore a helmet equipped with an intercom to stay in contact with rescuers on the surface.
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