Death Toll Reaches 12 in West Virginia Mining Disaster
 

Grief, anger as all but one miner found dead
Initial reports indicated 12 had survived

Wednesday, January 4, 2006; Posted: 10:25 a.m. EST (15:25 GMT)
TALLMANSVILLE, West Virginia (CNN) -- For three hours overnight, families of a dozen trapped West Virginia miners thought their loved ones were coming home as church bells rang to welcome them.

But by 3 a.m. Wednesday -- as one critically ill survivor was rushed to a hospital -- families learned that their thankful jubilation was premature.

There had been a tragic "miscommunication," said mine company chief Ben Hatfield. Twelve of the 13 trapped miners had not made it. They were dead. (Watch angry relatives react -- 3:21)

Anna Casto, who lost her cousin, angrily disagreed with Hatfield's use of the term "miscommunication."

"No, he strictly told us they was alive," Casto said. "Three hours later he come back and said they wasn't."

"We want to know why, and how people can get by with this," she said.

"I just want that immediate family to get some kind of satisfaction, to get some kind of answers." (Full story)

Casto said the tragedy has shaken the faith of some in the community. "We have got some of us ... saying... that we don't even know if there is a Lord anymore," she said. "We had a miracle, and it was taken away from us."
3-hour delay

# 11:53 p.m. -- Church bells ring as reports first indicate that 12 miners have been found alive.

# 2:14 a.m. -- A man is rescued and taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition after being trapped underground for nearly 40 hours.

# 2:44 a.m. -- Miners' relatives say they had been told all but one of the miners were dead.

# 3:11 a.m. -- Hatfield, president and CEO of International Coal Group, which owns the Sago Mine, announces that despite previous reports, only one survivor was found in the mine. (Timeline)

Hatfield called it the "worst day of my life."
Critical condition

The sole survivor, Randal McCloy, 27, was in critical condition in intensive care Wednesday at Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown.

"He suffered some collapse of one of his lungs," said Dr. Larry Roberts. "And we're trying to reopen that and there's good progress there."

Roberts said McCloy was sedated and attached to a breathing tube, but was moving and responding to stimuli.

"We hope that we will try to awaken him later today or tomorrow," the doctor said.
'Who do we tell?'

Hatfield said he knew within 20 minutes that an error had been made and that not all 12 were alive, but said he did not inform jubilant family members.

"We couldn't correct the information without knowing more about it," he told reporters. "Let's put this in perspective -- who do we tell not to celebrate? All I knew is, there weren't 12 people that were alive. It was somewhere between 12 and zero."

Hatfield said he understood family members' anger.

"I'm not surprised or upset with them. They certainly have some basis for their frustration, having been put through this emotional roller-coaster. I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

Hatfield said the miscommunication occurred between rescue crews and the command center, causing the earlier erroneous reports. (Watch the CEO's grim announcement -- 9:00)
Miners were alive after accident

Hatfield said it was apparent that the miners, who were found 13,000 feet into the mine, remained alive for a period of time following the explosion. They had built a "rough barricade structure," he said, and had donned their self-contained breathing apparatuses. The apparatuses held one hour of oxygen; Hatfield said he had no way of knowing how long the miners were alive.

The rescue team that found the miners was speaking to the command center over mine communication system on an open speaker audible to a number of people, Hatfield said. He noted the company made no formal announcement that the 12 were alive, but said he would not single out any rescuers, as they were trying to save the miners' lives.

"The honest answer is, we were devastated," he said. "It's sorrow beyond belief ... Welcome to the worst day of my life."
'Some wrong communications'

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin -- who flashed a thumbs-up on the steps of the church and said, "believe in miracles," after hearing the initial report that the 12 were alive -- called the situation "heart-wrenching." (Watch Gov. Manchin explain what may have caused the miscommunication -- 3:44)

He said he was in another room of the church with some family members when "we heard families in a euphoric state, and all the shouting and screaming and joyfulness." He asked what was happening, he said, and was told, "They found them. They're alive."

Manchin said he asked his communications people if they had confirmed that information, and they said no. But he was caught in the sea of jubilant relatives streaming out of the church, and the church bells began ringing, he said. He said he was "in a euphoric state, the same as they are."

It was about 20 minutes later, he said, when he also became aware of "some wrong communications." The delay in informing relatives, he said, came because officials were trying to get accurate information instead of adding to the confusion. He said he understood the family's pain, as his own uncle died in a 1968 mine accident.

"To put blame on anybody -- it's the wrong time, the wrong place," Manchin said. "Everybody has worked so hard. The rescue teams have worked around the clock. They've come from all over the country."

Oh, Thank God! :)

Unbelievable. Good for them.

Holy crap. From the news I heard this morning, it sounded like the worst. That's awesome.

Thats great news. Are you sure it was reported? You'd think they'd only report it if it was found that they died horribly.

I'm very very glad to hear that they survived, just saying its rare to get good news from tv.

I didn't know anything about this.........shows you how much I pay attention to the news I guess.

check it out yourself... also, al saunders has been named coach of the Lions.

That is great news...

I am watching it now thanks for the heads up

Thats almost unbelievable.

I thought with the explosion, and CO..they were dead for sure.

Nick Athan reports that one of the miners has been flown to KC to meet with Carl Peterson.

On Surtains private jet. ROFL

Gawd DAMMMMN you!!


I wanted to break that story with the WPI angle.


Mutherf.... ROFL

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

ROFL

Thank God..he was looking out for them...AMEN

Did any of them start eating each other?

Is food all you think about ****face?





ROFL

CNN?.........I won't believe it until I see it on Fox News. :p

ROFL

He got it first...


ROFL

No, I also think about slitting your ass head to toe, jaw to jaw.

relax francis, I am just playing. chill with the columbine stuff alright?

ROFL

ROFL

Sure. Why let all that good meat go to waste?

http://www.foxnews.com/

It's true.

I heard Rich Scanlon dug a seperate tunnel to where the miners were and one by one pulled them each to safety.

did he eat them?

Now if they can only find Archie's missing cat.

Now someone's saying there's only one survivor, and that the scene is apparently a madhouse among the main crowd of people.

CNN is reporting there's only 1 actual survivor... I can't believe this....

they should have put out anti freeze

This is some serious ****ing, "HOLY SHIT."

Yeah, I thought everything was great and turned it, I was just flipping back through the channels and Anderson Cooper looked like a train hit him and he was just saying that they were now learning that they are all dead. I don't even know how the mine officials made that mistake... even the governor gave the thumbs up earlier....

I bet he ate the other ones.

Damn. Damn. Man, the shit those poor families must be going through. They must be damn near insane now. How the hell could this info get fucked up so badly?

I guess it's kinda like the whole elementary school game of telephone... pass a secret around the room and see how much it mutates in the process. One of the rescue workers said 12 were alive and that got passed through cell phone communication I guess... that's what the president of the mine corporation says. That's why it took the mine so long to actually hold a press conference, they didn't have confirmation of things until now....

Communication gone horribly wrong.

12 Found Dead in W.Va. Coal Mine

By Ann Scott Tyson and Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, January 4, 2006; 3:18 AM

SAGO, W.Va., Jan. 4 -- Stunned and weeping family members were told early Wednesday morning that 12 of the 13 miners trapped 12,000 feet into a mountainside since early Monday were found dead.

They were given the news about 2:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, just a few hours after being led to believe that all but one of the men were alive. Company officials confirmed the deaths at 3:06 a.m. and said a "miscommunication" stemming from an overheard cellphone conversation resulted in the spreading of the original information--that 12 were alive.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...010400247.html


The cruel bitch of all this is that Wednesday's print papers are going to trumpet the news that they were found alive.

Yep, on CNN they just showed a copy of USA Today. Great big print. "12 Miners found alive!"

Something like that anyway...

They are, and they are actiing irrationally. They are fuming and keep talking about "lying" and how the company lied to them.

There were 3 women being interviewed on CNN.

They didn't seem to have a rational thought between the 3 of them. All emotion, and all worked up. I'm sure they were emotionally raw.

The media guy tried to explain that it was a "miscommunication", and they all flatly refused him saying that there was no room for "miscommunictaion".

They either didn't understand or refused to hear that the miscommunication wasn't on their part but between the rescuers and the command center.

It was frustrating to watch because I really lost sympathy for them as a result of the interview. They weren't hearing the details though their outrage. That's understable, but it also pissed me off that the CNN guy seemed to try and feed that outrage rather than try to clarify the details and bring down their (misplaced) anger.

It's a crappy situation and I imagine that all the people involved are victim to some crappy circumstances. Obviously the families end up suffering the most, by far.

From the press conference, it sounds like the rescuers reported arriving at the scene and finding 12 survivors (or that's what the command center heard from them). It turns out that they were trying to say they found the 12 miners (not necessarily that they were all alive).

Apparently the radio in the command center is one that fills the room so everyone heard the report and someone called family or something unoffically reporting the news. Someone those unoffical reports got back to the church (by family members on cell phones supposedly).

The reports at the church actaully came from the families themselves and not from the company or the governor.

That's what's been reported anyway.

Some one is going to pay for this shit. God, that's horrible. :(

Obviously the company lied, not expecting that the families would eventually learn the truth... :rolleyes:

It's a messed up deal, but if people feel the need to play the blame game, they need to focus on the disaster itself and not a collateral event like miscommunication about survivors.

You win this thread.

Bush Lied, Miners Died.

If they didn't out and out lie, they at the very least sure cherry picked their intelligence. :rolleyes:

Well, I'm glad I missed riding this rollar coaster as it was happening...

it's heartwrenching enough to hear about it after the fact. :deevee:

I can completely understand the families outrage. Especially given the fact that of the 200 violations this company was cited for last year, over 90 of them were serious and/or safety violations. Obviously the families had EVERY reason to be skeptical of what the officials from the mine tell them.

It seems the sad irony here is in their haste to believe in a miracle they did not remember these officials are the very same people they've come to suspect since the accident.

Just an all around horrible situation. I hope the officials of the mine are prosecuted if they knowingly, even inadvertantly, sent these guys into their deaths.

Please don't politicize this. That isn't even a funny joke. :shake: :mad: :rolleyes:

Fugg hugh!! Miss politicize everything.
This is no more or less serious, nor more or less political, than Bush's actions in the WoT. And the parallels between the 'sheep' apologists response to the banshees on the left on Iraq, and jAZ's response to the family members is undeniable, down to the smallest detail.

Again, what could the company possibly gain by making up false claims of survivors? To blame the miscommunication solely on the company is ridiculous. If you want to blame the accident itself on company negligence, that's fine...but to claim that the company intentionally led people to believe there were survivors is just plain silly.

Where is the motivation for such an act of misinformation? Did the company plan to bring in body-doubles to insert into the families and just couldn't get it done before CNN discovered the real truth? :rolleyes:

Unfortunately, this kind of stuff is the price tag attached to All-Media-Access-All-The-Time.

People need to focus on the real issue and stop headhunting. Alas, the latter seems to be the New American Way.

Put down the whiskey and grab some coffee...

I agree with this post 100%. I don't think the company lied about survivors. There would be NO SANE REASON TO DO SO.

However, it's quite evident this company has a long and continued history of neglect and irresponsibility to the workers. I would think that the families would have been more skeptical of the word of survivors given the mine officials terrible history but they were not. Ultimately, when the shock and anger wears off they will see they surrendered their common sense to hope for a miracle and were understandably vulnerable to believing these same officials who have consistently not had their families best interest at heart from the start.

That is QUITE different from the officials outright lying...

:rolleyes: Are you serious? Don't politicize this? Pretty crappy isn't it? You see the irony of this? You are the queen of politicizing tragic situations. Now maybe you understand why the people on this board who still have at least a fraction of their sanity left are so disgusted by you.

Actually, I'm not. I am, however, the most popular and cited excuse for other people politicizing current events. Thank you.

If you need proof, see the fact that you made your shithead remark before I even posted on this thread.

You may have missed my tone.

In case no one ever told you, a deflection is not a rebuttal.

When I went to bed last night all of the news agencies were reporting 12 alive and 1 dead. GREAT!! Now, this morning I woke up and I kept seeing reports of 1 alive and 12 dead. HORRIBLE! I went to Fox News to confirm it. Damn! It's true. Fox News was reporting that all of the news agencies got their info from the Miners Foreman. The Foreman overheard the radio transmission from the rescuers in the mine to the rescue team on the surface. Apparently, he heard it wrong and ran around telling everyone that there were 12 survivors. In a way, I can't blame him. It's just a terrible situation.

Neither is projection, which is what you were doing with JAZ's post.

Again the non-verified 24x7 News get any story fast, forget verifying facts. Run with it.

Isn't that like the school game where you whisper something in a kids ear and then they whisper into the next and so on and so on. By the time it gets to the end, it is totally different then the original.

If it was a reporter who thought he heard survivors and then ran with the story, he should be held accountable. It would be very unfortunate if this was the case.

This miscommunication reminds me of Damage Control exercises we used to run on. We would line up the whole Damage Control Party and start at one end with someone passing information along and on the other end we would wait to see what came out on the end. Never once in running this exercise did the exact word ever make it the whole way to the end. There were physical issues (remember the rescue party was underground and in horrid conditions), mental (everyone was tired and running on empty after 2 days of ups and downs) and emotional (everyone wanted to believe that many of these guys survived.....so yes they might have picked up something and ran with it). I don't blame anyone for this miscommunication as it was just a tragic mistake. It is obvious that this coal mine was a accident waiting to happen with his continious pattern of bad inspections. My prayers are for the families and for that small town as it will be touched to the core by this tragedy.

I know it's en vogue to blame the MSM on everything these days, but in this case they are not to blame. They were simply reporting what mine officials had apparently told families and families repeated to them.

The people who needed to verify facts were the MINE OFFICIALS. They not only miscommunicated with the families but the media and then the general public.

The media will play the blame game all day, because the tragedy isn't as important as the "news".

Give us dirty laundry.

It's a little creepy here in Denver. The newspapers in the newspaper stands (which come out early) have a headline saying that the miners are alive, and the newspapers delivered to the homes (which come out a couple of hours later) have a headline saying that they're dead. Both of them have the same photo of a wife hearing the incorrect news that they're alive.

That's really sad. I got up this morning, and saw the front page of the KC Star, big, bold print "12 Miners Found Alive After 41 Hours". As I'm reading it, my dad tells me that it's not actually true. That the news was given around midnight that they were alive, the story was print and a few hours later, the opposite was found to be true.

I just want to send my thoughts out into space for the families and their loss. What a horrible way to find out your loved ones are gone. To be so hopeful and have those hopes granted, and then for them to be ripped away as quickly as they were given ... what a terrible thing to have to go through.

Of course...it's not because of irresponsible journalism, no way, it's because that damned mining company and their greedy profits. (see Jaz's posts)

Wow. Who would have guessed that jAZ and mememe would be on this thread.

First, a tasty hurricane. Now, this.

This situation certainly sucks, and is a tragedy to each of the families. Unfortunately, this type of accident has been happening since the beginning of the mining industry, and most of these miners who died, were certainly aware of these occupational hazards.

Sucks though... but certainly not unexpected.

Did you notice the spokesman for the mine was named Hatfield, and the one guy who survived was named McCloy?

West Virginia at its weirdest...

This is the worst miscommunication since Emmett and Ma Otter both decided to compete in the Frogtown Hollow Talent Show.

West Virginia: 1.5 million people, 4 last names.

Hooray for disaster

You know they'll be talking about this in every journalism school in the country this AM. Whatever happended to verifying sources? Black eye for the mass media, and horrible for the families involved.

So you are completely discounting the report that the media overheard/intercepted rescue worker communications and used that for the basis of their reports?

I hope they checked their sources before reporting that...

I am not protecting myself by attributing my feelings on jAZ. I am simply observing the concrete parallels between jAZ's remarks in response to those who are irate at the rescue teams and others who forwarded the news and the remarks of those responding to the BLPD contingent.

For ****'s sakes, someone should change the title of this thread. Just because newspapers can't undo their headlines, that doesn't mean Chiefsplanet can't.

A little respect please.

This isn't a journalism site. That would cost you $79.95.

It's interesting how the linked article has changed since you posted.

Though they've toned it down some, it sure sounds like the responsibility for the false report falls upon the media rather than the company.

And it still sidesteps the real issue of the accident. That's probably the company's fault, too, rather than the media.

Done.

Thank you.

I just know that I've looked at that thread title since last night, believing they survived. I didn't realize they were dead until I finally read the thread this morning.