One of the first things I ever saw on The Discovery Channel (gawd, nearly two decades ago) was about diamond mining in South Africa and how those mines operate. It's incredible - they have full trauma wards the size of a walk-in closet down the mineshaft because there's just not enough time to get some dudes out who've been badly injured.
Part of the PT for going in to the mine is spending 20 minutes doing calisthenics in a steam room that's 120F. You fall out, you're not going down the mine. The president/boss/whomever (not a foreman, I mean the mine's CEO or whathaveyou) was no slouch; he was down there every day, moving around among the men, staying out of the way when necessary but absolutely hands on (well, at least so we were shown).
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