Some may have been alive 10 hours after mine blast

PHILIPPI, W. Va. -- A coal miner left a detailed note reporting that he and other trapped workers had been alive at least 10 hours after the underground explosion in Sago, a family member said yesterday.

Ann Merideth, daughter of 61-year-old Jim Bennett, who was a shuttle car operator in the mine, said the note had three or four entries. The blast occurred at 6:40 a.m. Monday. Bennett's first entry was made at 11:40 a.m. Monday; the last, in words that trailed off the page, was entered at 4:25 p.m., almost 10 hours after the blast.

''Each time he documented, you could tell it was getting worse," Merideth said in an interview. ''Later on down the note, he said that it was getting dark. It was getting smoky. They were losing air."

The blast Monday killed one miner immediately; 11 more who were found nearly 42 hours later behind a plastic curtain erected to keep out carbon monoxide.

Doctors said yesterday that the condition of the lone survivor, 26-year-old Randal McCloy Jr., had improved dramatically, though he remains in a medically induced coma at a Pittsburgh hospital. When the medication was eased, his eyes flickered, and he bit down on his breathing tube, showing he was ''awake underneath our coma," Dr. Richard Shannon said.

The first wakes for the victims of the were yesterday; six funerals were planned for today.

At a makeshift memorial to her father and two other fallen miners from this tiny coal town, Merideth said: ''I often thought about if he had written a note. Well, we got one yesterday. Bless his heart. He didn't know how much more time he had, but he wanted everybody to know to tell my mom that he loved her," she said. ''And he wanted me and my brother to know that he loved us."

Meredith said the note left her with comfort, but also anger that her father could have been alive and lucid for a long enough time to be rescued.

The first rescuers did not go into the mine until 11 hours after the blast, a lag coal company officials said was necessary to clear the mine of high concentrations of poisonous gases.

As families and friends of the 12 men prepared to say goodbye with bowed heads and quiet prayers, mine employees met with company officials for the first time since the blast.

Before the viewings, the 145 employees of the Sago Mine were meeting with International Coal Group chief executive Ben Hatfield for the first time since Monday's explosion to discuss when the mine could reopen and company efforts to find them temporary jobs.

''We're going to do our very level best to take care of our people," Hatfield said.

An eight-person team has been appointed by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration to investigate Monday's blast.

Doctors believe that McCloy has brain damage from severe oxygen deprivation. But Shannon, the leader of his medical team at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, said yesterday that ''in the three days that we've been working with Mr. McCloy I'm really pleased to report that we've seen substantial improvements."

In hope of jogging McCloy back to consciousness, his wife, Anna, said she planned to play the music of one his favorite bands, Metallica. She also got him his regular brand of deodorant and soap, believing the familiar smells will help him come around.

And what does she plan to say to him if he does?

''I'll probably be speechless. I know I'm going to squeeze him and tell him I love him and how much I'm proud of him," she said.

McCloy's recollections could be crucial to investigators, who have yet to venture back into the mine. Officials worked Friday to begin drilling three ventilation holes into the central West Virginia mine.

This was aimed at purging of poisonous gases, allowing investigators safely back inside to determine what sparked the blast and how the miners spent their final hours.

''There are so many things we don't know about what went wrong," Hatfield said. ''We don't want to put any more people at risk until we know answers."

Among the theories being investigated is the possibility that lightning ignited naturally occurring methane gas or coal dust. Some of the most serious citations against the mine in 2005 were for the mine's plan to control methane and breathable dust.

The mine had been idle during the New Year's weekend. Mine-safety experts said gas can build up after just one day of idled operations, especially in the winter, when pressure tends to drop.

Also, the metal casings of abandoned natural gas wells above a mine can conduct an electrical current into the ground. ''If this is in fact a strike of lightning onto a well, gas or oil, that sits above an abandoned section of the workings, that well should have had a substantial barrier to avoid this," said J. Davitt McAteer, who oversaw the mining agency during the Clinton administration.