'Nothing left': Beaconsfield miner's sad health update

The collapse killed miner Larry Knight, with Mr Russell and Mr Webb returning to the surface after a daring rescue mission almost one kilometre underground.

The pair were initially presumed dead after a rockfall before their faint cries from within a small steel cage were heard by searching workmates days later.

In 2025, Mr Russell announced he had started treatment in hospital for an undisclosed illness.

"After years of pain, uncertainty, appointments, treatments, setbacks, and endless battles, plus the emotional exhaustion of having to pick myself up time and time again, have left me with nothing left to give," he posted on social media on Tuesday night.

"The time has come medically and physically where there are no further options on either front for me and there is no more fight left in me.

"I will leave hospital tomorrow after eight and half months for the last time to see out my days in my own home surrounded by my wife, kids, loved ones and friends."

Mr Russell thanked staff at the Launceston General Hospital for the support and kindness to "soften the daily grind" of a difficult journey. 

In April, Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff recognised the two men on the 20th anniversary of the minor earthquake that caused the collapse. 

Mr Russell and Mr Webb took a seemingly impossible situation and dealt with it with Australian humour, Mr Rockliff said.

"At one point ... Todd asked rescuers for a copy of the newspaper so he could start looking for a new job, joking he'd be losing his current one 'for lazing about'," he said. 

In the years since the rescue, Mr Russell worked as a firefighter and motivational speaker and has told of the mental toll of the incident. 

People who had not been underground did "not know what darkness is", he said in a 2016 interview. 

The Beaconsfield gold mine closed in 2012 but efforts are being made for it to return to production.