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Florencio Avalos, the first miner to be rescued - Source: Reuters
A bit of Kiwi ingenuity has helped to keep 33 miners trapped 700 metres underground in Chile in good health.
New Zealand inventor Brian Russell developed a special harness which has been monitoring the miners' vital signs for the past two weeks.
Today, the strap was put to the ultimate test, tracking the miners' health as they were brought up from the mine.
Russell said the men have been monitored to ensure they don't black out during the 16 minute journey up the chute.
"The second phase of our project has been monitoring the men on the way up," he said.
The cutting edge technology was lowered down the mine to the men after they were discovered and an Auckland team has been watching them ever since.
The most important task has been keeping the miners healthy and sane and the Zephyr Technology monitor has been an invaluable tool in achieving this.
In the last three weeks especially, each of the miners has been fighting hard against ill health, working out for an hour a day in the 30 degree heat. Some of them were forced to lose weight to fit in the 50cm wide rescue pod.
Russell said the company was initially approached by the rescue team.
"We've been working on this for the last few months with our distributor down there when the government came to us and asked us if we could help," he said.
The device is also used by the US Special Forces, swat teams and firefighters.