we were lucky enough to bring you the very first miner rescue live on last night's "nightline" broadcast. and after an incredible 24 hours, the mission is accomplished. all 33 miners are safe. and in a bit of poetic timing, you're looking at the last man to leave the infamous san jose mine. what happened in between the time manuel gonzalez went down into the mine and came back out is a story that will be told for the ages, starting with this special program, right now. tonight on "nightline," free at last. unbelievable scenes tonight as miner 33 emerges from the tomb.

the new holder of a record he never wanted. longest time ever trapped below ground. watching and waiting. we're live on the scene as the last rescuers rise up, and the world prepares for an historic celebration. and miracle at the mine. a special edition of "nightline," live from the san jose mine, starts right now. >> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, cynthia mcfadden and terry moran in new york city, and bill weir live from the san jose mine in chile, this is "nightline," october 13th, 2010. >> i'm bill weir, and welcome back to a frosty, yet jubilant northern chilean, where they are celebrating the final man out of the san jose mine. imagine if you are the man, if you're the last man to leave this place, say you're manual

gonzalez, who happened to be the first rescuer to go down and start this process, 24 hours ago, how do you do it? how do you leave? well, you take a well deserved bow. because you and your team have accomplished something that few people ever imagined. as for the 33, how they will deal with the sudden fame and fortune, how they will manage the post-traumatic stress, all of that remains to be seen. but for tonight, they are free, and they are surrounded by pure human affection, both near and far, and we begin tonight with a look back at the last 24 miraculous hours. and it is the best kind of suspense tale, scary as hell, but everyone gets out alive. luis urzua was the last of the 33. deep underground, he hugged his

rescuers good-bye before boarding the capsule that would take him above ground. one last cheer for the men and their country, and then sirens screaming, he arrived. and the world was waiting for him. it will be remembered as a rescue executed on the grand scale. but here, it was little hours, waiting for the moment when their miner would emerge from underground. christina proposed to her long-time boyfriend claudio while he was underground. he said yes.

next out was mario gomez, who dropped to his knees as a prayerful silence fell over the crowd. his wife pulled him to his feet for a hug. and also waiting was the eldest of his six brothers, renaldo. the emotion with him, he say us, was endless. he said he thought he'd never see me again. by dawn, there had been more than a dozen successful rescues. but each time they started to pull another man up from under ground, hopes lifted. that churning wheel at the top of the mine, a promise of progress. that siren, a song to the family members waiting. victor hugged his son, even before he stepped out of the capsule. then a kiss for his pregnant wife, who he had been writing poems for. there was omar, jubilant, waving the flag of his favorite soccer team.

and victor, known as the writer, who kept a journal of the miners' daily grind. he was embraced by the chilean president, who said to him, welcome back to life. but it wasn't just happy families. there was also a love triangle unfolding. yonni barrios had been underground, but also in hot water. his wife discovered his girlfriend when she called to tell her that the mine had collapsed. he had asked for both women to wait for him above ground. so, today, which one would show? he looked a little startled to find only the girlfriend. his wife told a chilean newspaper while she's happy he's alive, she wasn't interested in being there. air way from the rescue platforms, families gathered at camp hope. things here have cleared out since yesterday, as many packed up their tents to follow their

loved ones to the hospital. but we caught up with alberto, the uncle of not one, but two of the trapped men. last night, his family celebrated as his nephew florencio was the first miner to emerge. now that you've seen some of the rescues, how do you feel about your other nephew? are you worried? are you less worried about your other nephew? "just because he's the second," he says, "doesn't mean we're going to celebrate less. and celebrate they did. when around supper time, renan arrived above ground. and a dramatic moment, during the extraction of franklin. rescuers quieted the crowd and yelled down to him. when he called back up, "i'm okay," the crowd went wild.

he and the other rescued men are whisked off to the hospital for evaluation. the minister of health says if miners are too euphoric to sleep. they're not willing to rest, he said, until the last one of them is rescued. so, tonight, with the mine shaft finally empty, maybe they can get some sleep. knowing that their dreams of fresh air and freedom have been realized at long last. stunning to think, now, that all 33 miners are in the nearby hospital, the nearest big city, actually, and of them all, considering they've been down there for ten weeks, you've got one case of pneumonia, two men who will need dental surgery, a few eye problems, but for the most part, they are all in incredible health. and coming up, we will have an

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this mine rescue has been so meticulously planned all along and we've watched it, the proof of that, live every day, including the sequestration of

each of these miners. keeping them out of the private eye. they had been coached by media coaches to deal with the onslaught of interest. there have been no exclusive interviews, though, until now. abc news managed to catch up with ricardo villarroel, the 28th man rescued today. he is an expectant father and a young man. and moments after being pulled out of the mine, he spoke to us. here's abc's john quinones. >> reporter: it is the start of a new chapter in a saga we've all been watching unfold. a new chapter, infinitely more private. just this evening, 27-year-old ricardo villarroel came out of the capsule, miner number 28. when the mine collapsed, his wife was pregnant, and this is the message he sent her while he was down below.

"who has been waiting at home with her pregnant belly," he says, "tell her i love her a lot and thi'm going to get out." and this is what he said just moments ago at the hospital. "i never used to pray," he says. "here, i learned to pray. i got closer to god." now that the worst is over, it's time for the men, who were so strong for so many weeks, to admit that they were frightened. "we didn't want to wait anymore," he says. "we were deteriorating. we were skinny. i lost 12 kilos. and i was scared of not getting to know my son, which is what i wanted the most." tomorrow, in a hospital nearby, his son will be born. but tonight, all of chile is

celebrating the rebirth of the men they call "the 33." >> it's rebirth and new birth together. you couldn't write this and sell it as a novel. amazing stuff. we'll have much more from him tomorrow on "good morning america," in which he talks about the early fears and how they overcame it with humor and religion. and now, to another character. we've come to really have strong affection for. he's the showman who hosted the camera tours of the mine. mario sepulveda, now known as super mario. the shift leader, who kept everybody buttoned up, kept morale high, kept them alive when there was food for only a few days, tonight, we look at two of los 33. here's jeffrey kofman. >> reporter: in the 70 days they'd be trapped inside the mountain the world has gotten to know a little bit about many of the 33 men. as the stories of their lives have filtered to the surface.

but two of them have become larger than life, taking center stage in an extraordinary real life reality show played out ubdz ground, but on tv. their names are likely to become very familiar, if they aren't already. mario sepulveda and lieu luluis. mario is known as the precenter of the group. he took the world on a video tour of their stifling living quarters. and he charmed, thanking those outside for providing the men with music, cracking jokes. here, he says, they need privacy in the phone room, because they're macho men, and they need to be alone to cry. he went into the mine married to an accountant with whom he has two children. he says he wants to go on that way, that he wants to die a

miner. but when he emerged last night, it was clear that may no longer be in the cards. mario has become a rock star. super mario, as he's now called, was clearly ready for his closeup. he worked the crowd. beginning a chant of his own. and then, there is luis, the shift foreman and leader of the crew. wheel much more soft spoken than mario, he's emerged as the fearless and composed commander in chief. he was the one who gathered the group when the mine caved in, and immediately put in place a rigid set of rules and regulations about how to proceed in their new understoground wor. he's considered the owner of the mine, a leader in the world of mining. it was he who sent up the now famous note alerting the world, we are all well in the shelter.

the 33. some wonder if the men would still be alive if it weren't for luis. he rationed the emergency food, which proved to be staggeringly accurate. when rescuers first made contact with the miners on august 22nd, there was just two days of food left. as days turned into weeks, luis used his training for the men to work, sleep and clean. this is our office, he shows the camera. our floor is mud. he would turn on the headlights of his office, a white puckup truck, so the men could see something that at least looked like a bit of sunshine. he's been integral in making the men feel like they have a purpose and routine. he had them stick to their jobs. he created a day and night routine and had them work in 12-hour shifts, just like they did before the disaster. always level headed, he said

they were being realistic and knew it was a difficult situation, but thank you to everyone who is helping from abouf. and so it seemed only appropriate that he would be the last of the 33 to leave the mine, setting the world record for the longest time surviving underground after a mining accident. like the captain of a ship, he was the last man to leave. i'mjeffrey kofman for "nightline" in chile. >> one more interesting nugget. he left, actually, a safer mine to come work here, much to the dismay of his family, but much to the relief, tonight, of 32 other families, as he led them back to the surface. when we come back, we'll show you how this ultimate reality show played around the world, how hope is truly universal. ♪ ,

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meg whitman's hometown newspaper said it best: "meg whitman has demonstrated a loose relationship with the truth" "a poor understanding of government" "pat solutions for problems whose depth and complexity clearly elude her" "she utterly lacks the qualifications to be governor" jerry brown "offers california exactly what it needs" "good ideas, strong principles, a reputation for telling the truth" and the ability to "get things done in sacramento" meg whitman's hometown newspaper and newspapers across the state

have endorsed jerry brown for governor. >> announcer: "nightline" continues from the san jose mine in chile with bill weir. >> we have an amazing shot to show you now, after staring wrapped at that mine half a mile below the chilean desert. look at it now. it is empty. and will remain empty, this 115-year-old mine, shuttered now. and as you can see, the text there in spanish, operation san lorenzo complete. san lorenzo, the patron saint of miners. and that has been the stage of the most amazing human drama. thousands of journalists carrying the story of what happened down there to every corner of the planet. and everywhere, it resonated, really, the same. universal sympathy for the miner's plight. universal joy for their return.

here's john donvan. >> reporter: as they began pulling men out of the earth last night and all day today, how many different languages was that chilean soccer song translated? the one where they change the words to "we've got to get them out." but we all knew what they were saying. no translation needed. as this story followed the sunrise across the globe this morning. there was something going on here, a bad situation, and normally, we want to look away from those. a bad situation, where going back to early august, we all knew the stakes, and they were simple. there were men trapped inside that mountain, and all they wanted, so simple and so obvious, was to get out, while all they could do was to wait and to chew through time. and the meaning of that time, well, look at what we did with it up on the surface.

while they waited inside that mountain. we saw a justice sworn in, and a rally in washington. and a party in hollywood, and a championship in new york. and a dress made of meat on a lady named gaga, and we saw them getting started again in "dancing with the stars." a devastating flood hit southeast asia. and there was so much more, so much just life unfolding in the sunlight, while they waited inside the earth. it's not something that's easy to contemplate. it's unsettling, stifling, even, to think about it. because being trapped, and the really striking thing was, once they got those cameras down there, we could watch them in the rock prison, being trapped and confined is an evil that we all understand, and that we all rebel against. the only side to root for here was the "get them out of there" side. seeing those faces in the murky light, it really brought us together. but we've seen this story before, and it has always had

that power. jonah and the whale. of the three men in space who found out they might not get back. >> houston, we have a problem. >> reporter: there's a reason hollywood picked that story up. none of us has ever gone to the moon, but humanly speaking, we all know that creepy, pressed-in feeling when all you want to do is to get back home. we keep making that belief. tom hanks in "castaway." the survivors in "alive." the semireal survivors in the semireality of reality television. or that time in the '80s when a little girl stumbled into a well and we all watched when that event gave us the ending we wanted. leave it to woody allen to remind us in "radio days" where a voice described that same kind of rescue, a child down a well, a nation transfixed, to remind us we don't always get those kinds of endings. >> molly phelps is dead. >> reporter: sometimes our side loses. that tragic moment in west virginia, when the coal miners

thought to have survived a cave-in, with the church bells ringing, turned out, in tend, to be dead. all but one, dead. but this time, thank god, thank humanity, we got what we all want to get. freedom. the basic kind there is. freedom to breathe clean air and to walk into the arms of your loved ones. we all get that story. and it's irresistible. because good things happen, too, and we don't want to look away from those, ever. i'm john donvan nfor "nightline in washington. >> so nice to revel in a happy ending that everybody around the world can enjoy. our thanks to the word master john donvan. and we'll be right back. >> jimmy: tonight, gabourey sidibe, tim and eric, and music from mark ronson and the business international. all broadcast live from a hole

in chile. jk jk is next.

in an exclusive interview with abc tonight, one of the miners, rescue miners, described the early days, the early moments of the cave-in here at the san josein