All the major news network featured it and hundreds of millions of people watched it: six rescuers going down an escape shaft to help get out the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground. The miners have been trapped for two months and the rescue operation took 24 hours. It was an amazing thing to watch and it turned the miners into sort of celebrities with their neighbors giving them a hero’s welcome on their return home.

A day after their successful rescue, three of the miners have been cleared to head home from the hospital. They, however, still wore dark sunglasses to protect their eyesight while they get re-accustomed to sunlight after being trapped in a dark tunnel. The 30 other miners will also be given clearance to go home after medical tests.

The doctors who looked at the miners say most of them are surprisingly healthy, considering that the past two months they were trapped in the wet and dark underground. One is being treated with antibiotics for pneumonia and others are suffering from dental condition but none is under serious health problem. All 33, though, should be observed for possible lasting emotional damage.

“There should be concern about their psychological adjustment over time, particularly after the joy of the reunion period, which will last for a few days to a few weeks,” says psychiatry professor John Fairbank of Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina.

One of the three miners who were allowed to go home, 52-year old Juan Illanes was surprised by the cheers and confetti that welcomed him home. For him, the past two months pushed him to the limit and all this attention has not yet sunk in.

The attention may indeed be overwhelming: after numerous celebrations in honor of the miners in South America, they have been elevated to celebrity status. They will all return home not just to cheers and confetti but to gifts and job offers as well. Even Manchester United and Real Madrid give their own gift in form of invitations to watch the soccer games in Europe.

The 33 miners were trapped when the mine caved in on them. They were believed dead until 17 days later rescuers found them with a bore hole the width of a grapefruit. After 60 days, it took rescuers 24 hours to haul them one by one through 2,050 feet of rock in a metal capsule called “Phoenix”, which was just a little wider than man’s shoulders.