Two decades on, Beaconsfield mine rescue crews have recalled the moment two workers walked free

"To watch the cage doors come open and the boys grab their tags and then cuddle their wives, I've never been so proud to be an Australian in all my life."

Demolition technician Darren Flannigan recalls the hair-raising moment Brant Webb and Todd Russell walked free from the Beaconsfield mine disaster like it was yesterday.

"It comes rushing back and even though it's 20 years, I can still smell it. I can still hear the water dripping."

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Webb and Russell were trapped for two weeks, buried beneath a kilometre of rock.

A chilling moment in history, recalled vividly by the remarkable cavalry called in to help. People like paramedic Paul Featherstone, who was flown down from Sydney.

"I just said, 'I'm here to help. I just want to support you'. We were able to give them medicine, which was an anti-clotting medicine in the form of an injection. And we also gave them sustagen."

Paul was also tasked with talking with the miners and their families, a job that was handled very delicately.

"His (Todd's) dad said to me, 'Feathers, you're not going to tell me another day, are you?' This is after a week, you know, and it went for two weeks. But I was able to relay that they're in good spirits."

Mine manager Peter Hatswell says the moment he got the call Webb and Russell were alive was unbelievable. He was flown down four days into the mission.

"I got there and mine management was shattered. They'd been going for four days. So they put me in charge as the instant controller for the job."

The mission was as equally delicate as it was painful for all involved, after the tragic loss of fellow miner Larry Knight.

"We didn't want another fatality or anything to go wrong in there. So once they got their head around that, everyone knew what the plan was," Hatswell said.

That plan involved explosions that cleared the space between the rescue team and the buried miners.

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"This has never been done anywhere in the world before. Explosives have never been used for a rescue, not like this. And, you know, I eventually blasted to within 300 millimetres of their bodies and that was incredibly intense," Flannigan says.

He recalls the blasting like it was yesterday.

"The first shot was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. To push that button the very first time was just incredible."

It's a moment that Webb also recalls all too well.

"We'd hear them down there working away, you know, like drilling or whatever, and all of a sudden, boom. It'd all disappear. We'd go, 'Oh, I wonder what happened there'."

After more than 300 hours trapped, an iconic moment snapped by a rescuer. One that was never meant to happen, according to Flannigan.

"Glenn Burns, he smuggled a camera in his gumboot and he was the one that broke through and he took that photo. That photo was never supposed to be taken and so it's a pretty special photo."

After an incredible effort, Todd and Brant were freed.

"They just seemed to be in a good mood. You looked at their skin colour, you looked at their eyes. You could go, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, bastard. You know, like, you'll be all right'," Paul says.

Medical teams checked over the pair as they showered for the first time in two weeks. They were then transported in wheelchairs to the lift, but refused to be pushed out in one.

"They were knocked around. They had a half-speed ride up there, and they (the wheelchairs) got thrown at one side, and you saw it, that's what you saw after that," explained Peter.

Despite neck, back and leg injuries, the men staggered out of the mine - determined to tag off as they did every shift. A remarkable moment that still resonates with Australians, 20 years on.