At least they didn’t suffer.
In notes found in a West Virginia coal mine, the trapped and dying miners assured their loved ones that their final hours were not spent in any pain as they succumbed to apparent carbon-monoxide poisoning.
“Tell all I[‘ll] see them on the other side,” read the note written by 51-year-old mine foreman Martin Toler Jr.
“It wasn’t bad. I just went to sleep. I love you.”
He signed it “Jr.”
Toler’s older brother, Tom Toler, said the note was “written very lightly and loosely’ in block letters on the back of an insurance-application form found in his brother’s back pocket.
“I took it to mean that it was written in the final stages,” he said. “I’d call it more or less scribbling.”
John Groves, whose brother Jerry died in the Sago killed, said that he knew that at least four notes were left behind, although his family did not receive one.
Peggy Cohen, whose father, Fred Ware Jr., 59, also died in the Sago mine, said he did not leave a note. But she was told by the medical examiner’s office that messages written by other miners carried a similar sentiment as Toler’s.
“Your dad didn’t suffer,” she said officers told her.
“The notes said they weren’t suffering, they were just going to sleep,” Cohen said after identifying her father at a makeshift morgue at a school in Tallmansville.
Cohen said her father appeared peaceful in death, with the only mark on his body a bruise on his chest – a repose likely caused by gas poisoning rather than the injuries one would expect from an explosion.
“It comforts me to know he didn’t suffer and he wasn’t bruised or crushed,” she said.
Ware was among a dozen miners found huddled in the deepest part of the mine – about 2½ miles from the entrance – hidden behind a makeshift barrier designed to keep out some of the noxious gas.
The 12th victim, Terry Helms, 50, was found dead in another part of the mine with injuries that suggest he was killed by the explosion, officials said.
The depth of the tragedy was only made worse, when an unconfirmed report leaked out late Tuesday that rescuers had found 12 of the men alive, setting off a wild celebration in this tiny Appalachian community. Their hopes came tragically crashing down three hours later when it became clear that only one of the 13 survived.
The only surviving miner, Randal McCloy Jr., 26, slipped into a coma yesterday and may have suffered brain damage, officials said.
He was moved yesterday to a Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh to undergo hyperbaric oxygen treatment in an effort to help get oxygen to the brain.
The miner’s dad, Randal McCloy Sr., broke down in tears when he saw his son on a respirator.
“I bent over and kissed his head. I told him that I loved him,” he said.
McCloy Sr., said he believes “in his heart” that his son’s older, more experienced colleagues decided during their last hours to share their dwindling supply of oxygen with his son because he was the youngest of the group and had two small 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.
Autopsies were being conducted to determine how the men died and how long they stayed alive.
Each of the miners had a portable breathing pack that could provide up to an hour’s worth of oxygen, but experts say the time could be extended.
Investigators also determined that the heart of the explosion occurred in a part of the mine that had been sealed off.
While a several severe lightning strikes near the mine’s surface has widely been considered the leading cause of the blast, officials were looking at whether an explosive level of deadly methane gas or coal dust had built up in the mine.
Miner Denver Anderson, 61, who drove to work that morning with the doomed companion, Groves, said he escaped the explosion because he was part of a second crew that was not as deep into the mine.
He said the blast sent rocks tumbling down from the ceiling, cutting off the first crew.
“I didn’t hear nothing. It was a flash of heat. I lost my hat and broke half my glasses. I got peppered with pebbles right here on the cheek. I was pretty stunned. You couldn’t even see your feet,” he said.
Denver Anderson, also part of the second crew, 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.”
While the mine has a long history of safety violations, Anderson said he considered it a safe place to work and that most miners accepted the dangers associated with the job.
New York billionaire Wilbur Ross, whose company owns the mine, has put $2 million in a fund for the families of the tragic miners, but some relatives are considering legal action, said Terry Helms’ daughter, Amber.
The first of the funerals are scheduled to be held tomorrow.