Miners left farewell notes assuring their loved ones they didn't suffer

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.

"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.

Cohen 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.

She said the medical examiner told her notes left with several of the bodies all carried a similar message: "Your dad didn't suffer."

The 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 to keep out carbon monoxide, a deadly byproduct of combustion. The 12th victim was believed to have been killed by the blast itself.

Autopsies underway

Autopsies were underway Thursday, and officials would not comment on the cause of death.

Cohen 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.

"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."

The 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.

"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."

The miner's father, Randal McCloy Sr., said that he believes "in his heart" that his son's mostly 50-something colleagues 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.

"Those men were like brothers. They took care of each other," he said.

There was no immediate confirmation from officials that the men shared their oxygen.

The miners were using breathing apparatus designed to provide up to an hour's worth of oxygen, but an expert said that time could conceivably be extended.

Federal 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.

The first of the funerals are set to begin on Saturday.

Coal mine explosions are typically caused by buildups of naturally occurring methane gas or highly combustible coal dust in the air, but what exactly triggered that explosion remained unclear.

The 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.

The 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.

Denver Anderson, who was in a group of miners just behind those who were trapped, still had red splotches on his face from the coal dust and rock that struck him from the explosion.

"It wasn't no explosion sound to me that I heard," he said. "It was just a big gush of air and heat and gravel, dirt, dust and smoke. I tried to turn around and throw my arm up to protect my face."

The explosion was West Virginia's deadliest coal mining accident since 1968, when 78 men were killed in an explosion. Sago was the nation's worst coal mining disaster since a pair of explosions at a mine in Brookwood, Ala., killed 13 people in September 2001.