Five Days of Hope, Fear, and Search Efforts
Above ground, as rescue crews assembled, families waited in agony.
Heather — Steven’s wife, the woman who stood by him through deployments, injuries, late-night shifts, and years of uncertainty — prayed for a miracle.
For five long days, dozens of rescue workers pumped water, reinforced collapsed sections, and waited for safe conditions to proceed. Every hour felt like a lifetime.
At 6 a.m. on the fifth day, the water level finally dropped enough for rescuers to return underground. They moved carefully, methodically, and solemnly — all of them knowing the man they were searching for had likely saved their own coworkers’ lives.
Ninety minutes into the search, two rescue workers found Steven’s body.
He was in a position that said everything — facing the direction of the escape route, as though he had been watching until the very end.
One rescuer later said:
“He died a hero. There’s no other word for it.”
A Legacy Forged Long Before That Day
Steven’s courage was not born in the mine. It was shaped years earlier, in the deserts of Iraq. As a Marine rifleman, he fought in the First Battle of Fallujah, one of the most intense urban combat operations in modern U.S. military history. Seven days after surviving that battle, he survived a roadside bomb that nearly claimed his life.
But he didn’t break.
