Police Officer Mario Segura had just finished a course on how to save people from drowning. After hours in the cold of the Pacific Ocean, he was back at the station, ready to boil some water, drink some tea and end his 10-hour shift.

When the phone rang, he joked "probably a rescue," as the men always seemed to get hauled into the dust-clogged desert when they were about to finish a shift or had just spent the day scrubbing the cars spotless.

"I could tell by his face it was serious, he completely froze up," said Segura as he described the initial SOS that arrived at the police station on 4 August. Though the mine accident had happened at lunchtime, the specially trained Special Operations Group (GOPE in Spanish) was notified hours later, as the sun set on this deserted corner of northern Chile.

Packing ropes, carabiners, oxygen tanks and rescue ladders, the police moved quickly. Mining accidents in this part of Chile, especially in the San Jose mine, were common. "I looked at my watch and it was 7.30pm, I told my buddy we'd be back in three hours," said Segura. "Rescues always last three hours."

But when the police commandos were first briefed by geologists from the mine and began to listen to workers describe the "volcano" of dust and debris that had poured from the mountain, they began to unload their entire stash of equipment.

For the next 36 hours, in one futile attempt after another, they slowly lowered themselves into the mine as they descended a series of perilous ventilation ducts. Rocks fell around them. Small avalanches sprung from the walls, sending rivers of debris dangerously close to the team. Finally, the men found an entrance into the mine – but it was sealed.

"Usually a mine collapses and around the edges you can find space or rubble, but this was like one huge rock had just slid down," said Segura. "It looked polished, cleanly cut."

With all escape hatches sealed, the miners had no choice but to seek refuge at the bottom of the mine, 688 metres deep, where they had a small refuge and a section of tunnel that would now be home.

Luis "Lucho" Urzua was the designated shift leader and a man who commanded great respect from his workers – 32 of whom were now depending on him for leadership. Urzua rose to the occasion. He divided the men into three groups and created a sense of purpose for each man, a move that psychologists would later determine to be a key factor in the men's ability to spend 10 weeks underground without suffering mental breakdowns.

Urzua had more than two decades of experience as a miner, but had never worked in a mine as dangerous as San Jose. Locals jokingly called the men who worked there the kamikazes. Rarely did a month go by without serious mishap. In miner lingo, the San Jose mine regularly "goteaba" (dripped), which means rocks the size of a football fell from the roof. More than a few of the 33 trapped miners have missing fingers, a grim reminder that setting explosives in a darkened cave filled with loose rock is about as dangerous as work can be. "He never really talked about how dangerous it was, but we knew," said Carolina Lobos, 26, whose father, Franklin Lobos, is one of the 33. "He had been trapped before, in a different mine when a fire broke out, so we have been outside an accident before, but that one only lasted for 14 hours."

Urzua guided his men through the most difficult period, the first 17 days when they had no contact with the outside world and virtually no food. Living off a meagre ration of one spoonful of tuna fish and a half glass of milk every 48 hours, the men survived for 17 days until a rescue drill bored a hole large enough to deliver food, medical supplies and letters from their loved ones.

The miners' wives and families could never have imagined that the incident in early August would last a full two months. "I have passed through every possible stage of suffering [including] pain, anguish, terror, panic and uncertainty," said Elvira "Katty" Valdivia, wife of Mario Sepulveda. "You can't imagine the conditions in which these men worked. Mario would come out of there and spit these wads of black I don't know what … Never again will I let him work in a mine."

For many relatives, the months have been a mix of anguish and remorse. Several of the miners, it turned out, had multiple families who have now been thrust together on this uncomfortable stage.

Johnny Barrios, a shy miner known to be a great sketch artist, was pushed to the centre of the media circus when two women came to the mine to pray for their lover to be free. "Johnny doesn't want to come up," one of the psychologists for the miners would later joke in reference to the uncomfortable confrontation awaiting Barrios.

Other miners have confessed that after two months of solitude and reflection, they are aware of a singular truth – the end of their marriage. "I have realised how empty my life has been for all these … years," said one miner who plans to end his marriage on arrival topside.

For Victor Zamora, the confinement forced him to slow his perpetual workaholic schedule. "He found his other self down there," said Nelly, his mother, beaming with pride. "He always worked so much, he never stopped for anything, but now he has discovered that he is a poet. What he writes is so moving, so much from his heart, it is all just beautiful."