The effort to rescue the trapped Chilean miners ended happily Oct. 13, and Brown graduate Benjamin Levine '78 helped save the day. Levine used his cardiovascular knowledge to help prevent the miners from fatally fainting as they were winched to the surface.
Levine said the Chilean government contacted NASA for advice on how to care for miners as they were being extracted from the mine. NASA then contacted Levine, a Texas-based cardiologist and cardiovascular physiologist, who collaborates with NASA researching the effects of space flight on cardiovascular health.
The NASA flight surgeons spotted a "devastating complication" in the Chilean team's plan to winch the miners up in a "really, really tight cylinder," Levine said. He explained that one quarter to two thirds of people who come back from space lose consciousness because of the confinement in a small space and the stress of "deconditioning."
When a person faints, his or her heart becomes level with the brain and does not have to "pump uphill" to supply it with necessary blood.
But if a person who has fainted is unable to lie down, not enough blood reaches the brain and the person can die. This is "why crucifixion kills people, the Romans knew that thousands of years ago," Levine said. If the miners fainted in the confined capsule, they would die, he said.
At this point, NASA contacted Levine and his colleagues Doug Hamilton and James Polk, and asked their advice on how to prevent the miners' fainting. The timing was excellent for Levine, who had just finished an experiment simulating space flight.
To solve the problem, Levine, Hamilton and Polk ensured that the capsule was big enough for the miners to be able to cross their legs as they stood. Squeezing the legs together forces blood up into the brain, reducing the risk of fainting. They also instructed the miners to cough vigorously once a second. Levine — who said he became interested in cardiovascular science while a student at Brown — described this as "cough CPR", and said that this method can keep people conscious even if their hearts have completely stopped. They gave the miners Florinef, a drug that forces the body to absorb more salt and water than usual, increasing the blood and plasma volume.
All 33 of the miners survived the ascent. Levine described the Chilean team as "great doctors" who "handled it perfectly every step of the way," but they just "hadn't thought of" the fainting question. Imagine, he said, "half of (the miners) dying on the way up because they fainted and couldn't lie down."
When asked how it felt to be responsible for the lives of the miners, Levine replied that doctors have that "level of responsibility every day," and that "people depend on us." He compared his role to that of a cardiovascular surgeon performing a bypass operation, although this case differed in that they were "very much in the public eye." But he said it was "gratifying" to know that his research kept the situation from "being a disaster."
Levine said he thought the media focused so intensely on the rescue because it was one of those "feel-good stories pending potential disaster where everything goes right."
"It's a great story of human survival," he added.
