Surviving Miner Fighting for His Life

Jan. 5, 2006 — -- Watching the Sago mine tragedy unfold near the scene or on television, we could see the ambulances waiting outside the mine, expecting to rush 12 miracle survivors to help.

What no one could see was what was happening far under the ground. Rescuers -- hearing the moans of 26-year-old miner Randal McCloy -- raced to where he and 11 others were barricaded behind a makeshift barrier of plastic, which had failed to protect the others from the toxic fumes.

But McCloy had survived for 42 hours in the dark without food, water or clean air. Now the lone survivor of the disaster that killed 11 others is fighting for his life. Tonight McCloy was moved to a Pittsburgh hospital to undergo oxygen treatment and remove any remaining carbon monoxide from his body.

When rescuers found McCloy, they carried him more than half a mile on a stretcher before loading him in a train car that would take him the two miles to the surface. Once there, he was rushed to the Ruby Regional Hospital in West Virginia.

On Wednesday morning, Dr. Lawrence Roberts announced McCloy was suffering from a collapsed lung and a damaged kidney.

"Having been laying still for so many hours and being poorly hydrated for that period of time has resulted in some kidney dysfunction," Roberts said.

But he was alive, heavily sedated and hooked up to a breathing machine, trying his best to communicate with his wife, Anna.

"He couldn't talk because he has a breathing tube in ... but squeezing hands, facial expressions when he was talking to his wife," Robert said.

Roberts was upbeat, chalking up McCloy's survival to his relative good health and age. He was the youngest of the group that went into the Sago mine that day.

While his lungs, kidney and heart are improving, McCloy remains in a coma and doctors are worried he may have sustained some brain damage.

"We are all waiting for the moment he opens his eyes," said Dr. John Prescott of Ruby Memorial Hospital. "We believe there has been some injury at this point to the brain ... the fact is he is not waking up as quickly as we had hoped he would."

Little surprise that Randal McCloy's mother is both relieved he is alive and terribly worried about her son. McCloy is the loving father of two young children; he married his childhood sweetheart five years ago in the town where they both grew up.

"He's been a blessing in my life," said his mother, Tambra Flint. "He's an all around good family guy ... cares about his mom, cares about his wife, cares about his kids. ... The kind of kid a parent is proud of."

With no college education, McCloy did what so many other young men he grew up with do -- he became a miner.

"It's one of the highest-paid jobs around," said his brother-in-law, Rick McGee. "If you wanna make money and don't have a college education, mining is the way to go."

Three years into the job, though, his wife was increasingly afraid of the danger.

"It's dangerous, coal mining is a dangerous business," said McGee. "He is worried about his family, he has two young kids."

Just days before the accident, in fact, the couple was talking about McCloy quitting mining forever. Now his family is waiting and praying for his recovery.