January 4, 2005
By Ann Scott Tyson and Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writers
SAGO, W.Va., -- Great joy turned to deep sorrow and rage Wednesday morning when mining families here were told inaccurately that 12 of the 13 miners trapped in a coal mine were alive only to be informed, hours later, that they were in fact dead.
It was all the result of a "miscommunication," a mining company official said. He and others thought they heard a transmission from rescuers that the 12 were alive.
They learned the truth a half hour later but waited three hours to inform the families, who were celebrating the "miracle" and singing Amazing Grace in front of the Sago Baptist Church, which was ringing its bells.
When the same official, International Coal Group chief executive Ben Hatfield, finally gave them the bad news--that the 12 had died 13,000 feet into the earth--relatives reacted with fury. Hatfield needed a police escort to get out of the church. "We were thankful the police were there," said the pastor, the Rev. Wease Day.
The families became more enraged when they learned that officials waited several hours to tell them those they believed were alive were dead.
In fact, the 12 dead miners were found by rescue workers behind a large stretch of special fabric they were using as a barricade near the very end of the tunnel to block deadly carbon monoxide gas. A 13th, Randal McCloy, was found some distance away, where officials theorize an explosion occurred. He was in critical condition Wednesday morning.
The physician caring for him at West Virginia University Hospital in Morgantown said he had suffered carbon monoxide poisoning along with dehydration and a collapsed lung. McCloy was heavily sedated, he said, so physicians have been unable to determine if he also suffered a head injury.
So ended a drama that started early Monday morning with news of a possible explosion and of 13 trapped coal miners. A methodical and painfully slow rescue mission began with workers drilling and tunneling more than two miles into the mine in search of survivors.
Hatfield explained at a news conference early Wednesday what happened next. Officials and rescue supervisors were gathered at a command post near the mine when the voice of a rescue worker crackled loudly over a speaker phone, saying they had found 12 miners and were checking their vital signs.
Somehow, Hatfield and everyone else in the room who heard the call believed they were being told the men were alive.
Word spread rapidly to the relatives. It is unclear who was the first to tell them, though Hatfield at one point said they learned as the result of a "stray cell phone call."
Then everyone ran from the church screaming, 'They're alive! They're coming!" said Loretta Ables, whose fianc, Fred Ware, was among the missing miners. She had lost hope when she learned about the dangerously high levels of carbon monoxide in the mine but she was elated as she waited outside the church. "I feel great, very great," she said then.
"They're alive, all of them," someone shouted outside the church.
West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III left the church, the pastor recalled, saying he would be back with the men. "The governor said 'I'll be back with the men,' " said Day. "He believed it. I believed it."
The news flashed out across the globe and into the late editions of East Coast newspapers, where the encouraging headlines remained this morning because of the lateness of the second announcement.
Hatfield went about the business of trying to get medical supplies into the mine to treat the survivors. "We were putting those supplies onto vehicles when the corrected communication came across. It was a sorrow beyond belief."
Twenty minutes later, he said, another communication came from the rescuers: Twelve were dead, they said. One was alive.
It took several hours to tell the families that the good news was all a big mistake, a huge mistake. Hatfield said he waited because he felt his information might be incomplete and he wanted to avoid passing along further misinformation. Some might be dead and others alive, perhaps, he thought.
"I didn't know who to tell to stop celebrating," he said.
When the relatives finally got word, they erupted, according to Hatfield and family members interviewed. Cheers turned to tears and then fury and rage. "It was scary, like a mob scene," Lynnette Roby told CNN.
Then, family by family, they began emerging arm-in-arm from the church that had served as their refuge. Some were doubled-up with grief. Others just wept. Others were stone-faced and silent.
The families are "very irate," Hatfield said. "They feel they were lied to."
"There was a miscommunication to the command center," he said. "That miscommunication was communicated to me." Everyone heard the same thing, he said. "It was audible to anyone in proximity to the command center."
"We want to know why," said Anna Casto, the cousin of a dead miner, speaking to reporters. "I want answers."
"He strictly told us they were alive. Then three hours later they came and told us this. It isn't fair, the way they done," she said. "We thought our men were coming home. We wanted to have a party because we knew our men were coming home."
"They told us our loved ones would be out in an hour and on their way over," said Ann Meredith, whose father was in the mine. "This mine is unfit. They should shut it down."
Hatfield said: "We all had the same unfortunate information for a period of time. We all celebrated the wonderful victory, what we thought was the safe delivery of our employees."
"It's been a nightmare for these people," said Day, the pastor. "These coal miners have a right to be mad. The information wasn't what it needed to be.. The bottom dropped out of their joy."
Barbash reported from Washington.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/04/AR2006010400247.html?sub=AR