Headed home, mine survivor eyes a future above ground

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The sole survivor of the Sago Mine disaster would prefer to forget the few fragmented images he can recall from the 41 hours he lay trapped deep underground in a mine filled with toxic fumes.

And when Randal McCloy Jr. thinks of the 12 friends and co-workers who slowly succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning after the Jan. 2 explosion, he pictures them elsewhere.

"I try to leave out all the gory details and stuff like that, because I don't like to look at them in that light," he said Wednesday, a day before he was scheduled to be released from a rehabilitation hospital. "I just like to picture them saved and in heaven. ... That's really the best way you can remember somebody."

Doctors say McCloy, 26, was perhaps minutes from death when he was pulled from the mine Jan. 4 with kidney, lung, liver and heart damage. He was in a coma for weeks, suffering from severe brain injuries.

Doctors have called McCloy a miracle, unable to explain why only he survived.

He was the youngest of the 13 miners, a fitness buff who ate well, lifted weights and rode a bicycle. But McCloy himself remains mystified.

"I have no explanation of how I escaped it and survived," he said.

What he does know is that his wife, Anna, and two children have motivated him through painful and challenging therapy, and that he is going home months earlier than doctors first predicted.

"What I believe is that the people who are there for you tend to create a world where you can get better," McCloy said. "It's love, really."

McCloy is about 5-foot-10 and thin, down from 160 pounds to just 135. His throat still bears a deep purple mark from a long-since-removed feeding tube, but his voice is clear and soft.

He smiles often and seems frustrated only by his limitations, mainly a right arm that remains weak.

"My hands, my grip, is not as good as I want it to be, but I'm going to try to exercise."

When he gets home, he will continue to use weights to help speed his therapy. He also will return to the hospital three days a week, four hours a day, for a few more months.

Someday, he will start to think about work again. He is considering attending a vocational school, maybe to study electronics. He will not be going back underground.

"No, I done learned my lesson," he said. "The hard way."

Two of his co-workers' daughters have come to visit, and McCloy said he hopes to meet with all 12 families in the coming months.

"It's a delicate situation, and it should be handled delicately," he said. "... I just feel I should show them great respect."