Deceased coal miners left farewell notes to families

TALLMANSVILLE, W.Va. -- Some of the 12 coal miners who died in the Sago Mine disaster left farewell notes assuring their loved ones that their final hours trapped underground were not spent in agony, a relative said Thursday.\n"The notes said they weren't suffering, they were just going to sleep," said Peggy Cohen, who had been called to a temporary morgue at a school to identify the body of her father, 59-year-old machine operator Fred Ware Jr.\nCohen said that there was no note on Ware's body, but that she planned to retrieve his belongings to see if he put one in his lunch box.\nShe said the medical examiner told her the notes left with several of the bodies all carried a similar message: "Your dad didn't suffer."\nThe miners died after an explosion that rocked the mine Monday morning. Eleven of the victims were discovered nearly 42 hours after the blast, at the deepest point of the mine, about 2 1/2 miles from the entrance, behind a curtain-like barrier stretched across an opening keep out carbon monoxide, a deadly byproduct of combustion. The 12th victim was believed to have been killed by the blast itself.\nAutopsies were under way Thursday, and officials would not comment on the cause of death.\nCohen said her father had the peaceful look of someone who died from carbon monoxide, and the only mark on his body was a bruise on his chest.\n"It comforts me to know he didn't suffer and he wasn't bruised or crushed," she said. "I didn't need a note. I think I needed to visualize and see him."\nThe sole survivor, 26-year-old Randal McCloy, remained in critical condition in a coma, struggling with the effects of oxygen deprivation to his vital organs. Doctors said he may have suffered brain damage. On Thursday afternoon, he was moved from a hospital in Morgantown to one in Pittsburgh for more intensive oxygen treatment.\n"Certainly Mr. McCloy is going to have a tough course," said Dr. John Prescott. "We just don't know at this point how things will turn out."\nThe miner's father, Randal McCloy Sr., told The Associated Press that he believes "in his heart" that the other miners decided during their last, desperate hours to share their dwindling supply of oxygen with his son because he was the youngest and had two young children.\n"Those men were like brothers. They took care of each other," he said.\nThere was no immediate confirmation from officials that the men shared their oxygen.\nFederal and state investigators were at the mine Thursday, seeking the cause of the explosion and a more detailed explanation for the miscommunication among rescuers that had relatives believing for three hours that 12 of the miners had actually survived.\nCoal mine explosions are typically caused by buildups of naturally occurring methane gas or highly combustible coal dust in the air, but what exactly triggered the explosion remained unclear.\nThe Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette reported Thursday that a federal contractor that monitors thunderstorms detected three lightning strikes within five miles of the mine within a half-hour of Monday's explosion. The contractor, Vaisala Inc., said two of the strikes, including one that was four to 10 times stronger than average, hit within 1 1/2 miles of the mine.\nThe federal Mine Safety and Health Administration hit the Sago mine with 208 violations of federal mine rules in 2005, a number an agency official said was higher than normal for a mine that size. Those violations included 18 orders shutting down parts of the mine until alleged violations were corrected, but none serious enough to shutter the entire operation.