Hungry and weak after being trapped for four days underground, Simon Mushonga, 26, finally heard a faint voice from the surface.
He asked a fellow trapped miner if he had also heard the voice - and in unison the two began to shout for help from 60m underground.
It was the first hope Mushonga had that he would come out alive from the Silver Moon mine in the gold-rich Battlefields area of Zimbabwe.
Mushonga was the first to be pulled out by a rescue team made up mainly of artisanal miners known as omakorokoza, small-scale miners who work independently.
He is one of only eight who were rescued from the Battlefields gold mine that flooded on February 13; 24 others died below.
Rising water levels and lack of oxygen had dashed rescuers' hopes that more would make it out alive.
Mushonga did not believe he would survive.
"You get to picture all the memories you have shared with the next person and it's all in a flash," Mushonga told the Sunday Times this week.
Last year Zimbabwe produced 33 tons of gold, two-thirds of which were produced by the small-scale miners.
Mushonga recalled how the nightmare started. It began when "water came from nowhere" just as they were about to make their way back to the surface.
"We had just finished our mining activities and we were trying to make our way out of the mine. All of a sudden, water just pushed us backwards forcefully and we had nowhere to run. We were trapped," he said.
Authorities said a nearby dam had burst because of heavy rains and water had flooded the two disused mine shafts, Silver Moon Mine and Cricket Mine No3.
Just two weeks before the flooding, the Environmental Management Agency had raised a red flag about safety failings in the two shafts.
Mushonga said he and his fellow miners had been perched on top of a rock for about four days with no food or water.
"All we did was pray. But as the days went by, some of us gave up. It was painful that one would say, 'I am done, I am going,' and would then just give up like that. It's really painful," he said.
"I was also losing hope and all I could do was to think of what my family would be without me. We then heard one of the rescuers who had come down to position the water pump. We screamed at the top of our voices and he responded, and we held on."
The father of four has been a miner since his youth. Gold mining is how he takes care of his family and his parents.
"I could not believe it when I was finally rescued. I did not want to talk about anything. I was finally going to meet my family after losing all hope of ever seeing them again," he said.
Shepherd Sabe was the man who rescued Mushonga.
Sabe told the Sunday Times how he found Mushonga standing on the small rock. Others around him were much weaker than Mushonga, he said.
Sabe said that if there had been a delay of only a few more hours, no-one would have made it out alive.
"I had gone to position the water pump. I heard Mushonga, who seemed to be the one who was still strong, shouting at the top of his voice. He pleaded that I should act fast because they were running out of time. I was shocked and rushed up to the surface to alert others that there were people still alive," said Sabe.
On the surface, the rescue mission stepped up to high gear after hearing this news.
After his ordeal, Mushonga said he would not be going back underground anytime soon.
"Just knowing that you are not one of the 24 who drowned is a constant reminder that I was lucky. I don't have anything else to do for a living, although I have no choice but to stay away from mining," he said...