Hope Begins To Fade as Mine Search Continues

But the thing about the Australian rescue, Goodell said, "is that is they made contact after five days. They sent down granola bars and stuff. They even sent down an iPod, so the guys could entertain themselves."

Isolated from the outside world, some miners "flip out and really just go kind of crazy," he said.

The coal miners are in complete darkness, too dark to see one's hand an inch away. The air is 60 degrees, chilly and damp.

"They completely lose track of time," Goodell said. "Even guys who have been trapped for only two days talk about complete disorientation and thinking they've been underground for weeks."

Some hallucinate, and many think of death, Goodell said. Often they write notes to their families. One miner who died in the Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia last year wrote his family, "It wasn't that bad. I just went to sleep."

The families of the six Utah miners have largely shied away from the media, but several have indicated that they are discouraged. "I've accepted all possibilities," Cody Allred, the son of miner Kerry Allred, told the Associated Press.

Cesar Sanchez, brother of miner Manuel Sanchez, said to CNN: "I've got one string of hope, and that's why I'm hanging in there."

"Families always have hopes. They do," Dmytriw said. "That's all they can cling to."

Hope or not, the mine rescue will go on, Goodell said. "No matter what the families or you or I think, they're going to go full bore until they bring those six guys out, dead or alive."