What they said about Beaconsfield

WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT BEACONSFIELD

"It's cold and cramped in here. Get us out." - Todd Russell upon being discovered alive

"Todd Russell's mother came running in singing out; 'They're alive, they're alive, they're alive'." - United Church community minister Frances Seen

"I just wish I could give Larry's wife part of my miracle." - Todd Russell's mother Kaye wishes the outcome could have been different for miner Larry Knight, who died in the rockfall

"Why is it, is it the strength of the seam or the wealth of the seam, that you continue to send men in to work in such a dangerous environment?" - journalist Richard Carleton questioning the mine company moments before he collapsed during a heart attack and died

"It's fair to say that this is a grim set of circumstances but no one's going to give up hope until we have to." - Australian Workers' Union national secretary Bill Shorten

"Like throwing Kleenex at a rock." - Shorten on the painstaking task of carving away at rock to reach the trapped miners

"Though I'm halfway around the world right now, my heart is with you both, and I want you to know that when you come home, there's two tickets to any Foos show, anywhere, and two cold beers waiting for yous. Deal?" - Foo Fighters frontman Dave Groh in a note to the miners

"Everybody is with you mate." - the then prime minister John Howard to the trapper miners

"I'll give him a big cuddle and a kiss - and bash him." - Todd Russell's young daughter Maddison explains how she'll greet her dad

"For all our mates who each day said goodbye to their families and loved ones, every shift, to put their lives on the line for us and worked in dangerous unstable conditions, to bring us out, we owe our lives to them." - Brant Webb

"I said to myself 'I'm not dying here, I'm not dying here. This (will) take a bit more than a bit of rock to stop me'." - Todd Russell on how he survived