Essential Gear for Chilean Mine Survival

After 64 days the world watched in amazement as each Chilean miner ascended to the surface in a custom designed pod to the surface where they were immediately greeted by friends and family.  Once the rescue process began it took less than one day to bring all the miners to the surface.  As each miner exited the rescue pod they were all wearing their helmet which has a headlamp.

It was interesting to see how in the darkest environment imaginable for days at a time the miners relied only on their headlamp for lighting.  Amazingly a headlight with a less than 3 inch diameter can generate enough light to allow the miners to see those around them and perform basic survival needs.

It's no doubt that the lights were LED.  Only LED lights would be able to generate enough light and have enough battery life to make sense for a miner.  The batteries in the headlamps were also probably lithium.  Lithium batteries can power led headlamps for as long as 50 hours.  Of course the miners would not be able to run the headlamps continuously, but being able turn the light on for an hour per day to perform daily basic tasks would have been a life saver for the miners.