IV
At 5:45 am, the “one left” and “two left” crews, a dozen men each, are suiting up in the shower house of the Sago Mine, a small, 148-miner coal operation, one of a dozen mines owned by privately held International Coal Group. If you’ve worked the mines, you know the routine: Your hard hat, tool belt, boots, and emergency breathing gear are locked high in a steel basket, one basket per miner. You take off your street clothes and put on a rental uniform and your gear. You head over to the dispatcher’s trailer to get your lamp, which clips to the square block on the front of your hard hat. You move the brass tag with your name on it to the inside section of the control board. You buy a cup of coffee from the vending machine.
You nod to the mine dispatcher through his window, and you trudge down the boardwalk into the pit — the shallow quarry where a curved metal canopy frames the mine portal. From the outside it looks like a storage shed. Narrow rail tracks lead inside. You climb aboard a “mantrip” electric shuttle.
The dozen men of the Two Left crew go down first, as they have the farthest to travel. Randy, 26, is the youngest of them. Eight of the men are in their 50s. Everyone is talking about that night’s Sugar Bowl game, which will feature the West Virginia Mountaineers from an hour’s drive up the road in Morgantown. Lightning begins to pop, and rain falls suddenly and hard just as they go under.
That wild ride into the Sago Mine — no falling-apart amusement park has one better. You get inside your beat-up mantrip and down you go. The mantrip’s a squashed peanut of a vehicle, with a low, open center where the driver sits. He can swing around in his seat to go in either direction, as there is no way to turn the vehicle around underground. The low cabins, fore and aft, hold six to eight men each and have wire-grid openings for windows.
The first steep grade is slippery with winter ice. You buck back and forth and always worry that you might fly off the haphazard tracks, which happens often enough. You clutch your lunch pail. There is a black hole ahead, pulling you down. When the tracks finally level off, you hit the fast curves, clickety-click.
You make the last curve, and then it’s up a little underground hill and straight ahead, a bit less than two bumpy miles to go. You are in a drift mine, so named because the coal layer drifts right out the side of the mountain, and you just follow it in, mining as you go. At Sago, you go a good 300 vertical feet down, and it’s coal all the way.
There are two left turns off the main tunnels. The second dogleg, Two Left, a section of eight tunnels running parallel to each other, extends about three-quarters of a mile. Right at that junction the nine main tunnels are sealed off ahead with lightweight fiber blocks. (To get the idea of all the parallel tunnels, imagine drawing a picture of the mine on the ground with a garden rake.) Beyond those seal walls is a recently abandoned section the size of four Carnegie Halls. It is a waiting bomb.
The section was sealed off a couple of weeks earlier because too much water was coming in, too much methane, and the roof kept falling. One man was seriously injured in a collapse six months earlier. Then a six-foot-thick, 100-foot-long piece of the roof came down a month after that, luckily missing the workers. Methane is filling the section at a rate of about 14,000 cubic feet a day. It needs only 14 days to reach the 5 percent concentration needed to be explosive, which is exactly the time it has had. A few more days and it will be too rich to blow and thus forever inert. You might think they would give a mine a little time to itself during that dangerous time, but MSHA, the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, doesn’t require that, which means it doesn’t happen.
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November 18th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
THIS STORY SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC. RANDALL HAS LIED TO THE SAGO FAMILIES BECAUSE HE PROMISED THE FAMILIES THAT HE WOULD TALK TO US FIRST. US FAMILIES HAS A HARD ENOUGH TIME GETTING THROUGH THE HOLIDAY TIMES LET ALONE EVERY DAY WITHOUT OUR MEN SO WHY WOULD YOU PUT OUT A STORY LIKE THIS AT THE HOLIDAY TIMES? COME ON NOW………..THIS NEEDS NOT BE PUBLISHED. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE SOME COLD-HEARTED PEOPLE TO PRINT SOMETHING LIKE THIS.
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November 18th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
AND ANOTHER THING IF YOUR GOING TO PRINT PART OF MY DADS NOTE THAT HE WROTE FOR ME AND MY FAMILY THEN YOU NEED TO GET IT RIGHT SO YOU HAVE ALREADY PUBLISHED FALSE REPORTS. HE LEFT A TIME LINE BUT YOU HAVE THINGS THAT HE SAID WRONG.
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November 20th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Well how heartless can the authors of today be? Obviously very heartless. I am the daughter of Sago Miner, Fred G. Ware,Jr. I can not believe you are heartless enough to publish this story. There are twelve other families involved in this tragedy and have not heard this story. Now after reading the story I am reliving the tragedy all over. I am struggling everyday to yet make it through another day without my father. This story was supposed to be told to the families by Randal before it was published in a magazine (per his word). Another thing is that some of the information is inaccurate. I really would like to see sources of your information other than Randal. Where did you get all this information? Maybe the next time you decide to publish “a big story” you should check out your references better. I hope this story makes you proud because it has mad me extremely angry. Nothing like shedding more tears for our lost miners!!!!! They deserve better respect than a sloppy story with not all true facts. Especially when an individual who is not one of the miners families can read your story and pick up on the sloppy, inaccuracy. Hope you have a nice holiday! Because now i will be struggling!!!!!
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November 21st, 2008 at 12:52 pm
What a wonderfully-told story. This terrible tragedy gave me such a heavy heart and I feel so much sympathy for the families who have struggled both with their loss and with the public attention that has sharpened their grief.
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November 21st, 2008 at 1:10 pm
I picked up Men’s Journal to be honest because of Paul Newman on the cover. When I saw the Sago article I remembered how I watched all the news reports on that tragedy and how we all prayed for a rescue. This story is a wonderful tribute to those brave men and hopefully a comfort for the grieving families. Having lost my husband way too early, I know grief. For the Sago families, knowing the world thinks of all those miners as heroes , would I hope, help. This story reminds us all of their ordeal and bravery.
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November 21st, 2008 at 1:26 pm
A story as tragic as this must indeed be difficult to tell, and even more difficult to read, especially were it to chronicle the final hours of a loved one. The author gracefully walked the tightrope between informing the public of the causes and effects of this tragedy and respecting the impact the telling might have on the families of the survivors and on the searchers. Undoubtedly, there is more to this sad event than any one article can cover. It is in the telling of the story, from as many perspectives as willing, and in the mining reforms that this shared knowledge brings about, that these brave, caring fathers, sons, and husbands are honored. May God bless and bring peace to their survivors and to Randall McCloy.
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November 21st, 2008 at 1:54 pm
As an attorney who has spent 33 years fighting various corporations on behalf of injured workers and their families I was very gratified to see this article published. I believe that the publication of this tragic story of good men who only wanted the opportunity to work to care for their families should light a fire under the public to demand better oversight of mine safety. An article like this should also put public pressure on the insurers to properly compensate those who have suffered such tragic loss.
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November 21st, 2008 at 2:34 pm
As the author of this article, I relied upon the sworn testimony of the survivors and rescuers. Mr. McCloy also talked to me, but he did not financially profit from the article. I am full of admiration for the widows, grown children and other family members involved, who have dedicated themselves to improving mine safety laws. In fact, their efforts have already made a huge difference. That difference is the best memorial they could have built for their lost men. I made sincere efforts to contact the family members before publication, but my calls and emails were not returned, which I understand: They have been bombarded by press and are rightfully wary. I wish them a peaceful season. I urge readers to contact their Congressional delegations to push mine safety further along as a continuing memorial to that incredibly sad moment in American history. –Dennis Michael Burke
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November 21st, 2008 at 2:42 pm
What a riveting and emotional story…and one that needs to be told. Cannot imagine what the families have gone through, but stories like this touch all of us and can only help their cause of better mine safety. I felt it was written with empathy and feeling, yet the harsh reality of the facts came through. Well-done!
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November 21st, 2008 at 3:40 pm
I happened to read this article before the comments were written. I came back to it today because I have just learned from the Lexington (KY) Herald Leader that Tom Gish owner and publisher of the Pulitzer Prize winning Mountain Eagle newspaper is in a coma and not expected to live. The Mountain Eagle became the first newspaper in Eastern Kentucky to seriously challenge the environmental damage caused by strip mining.
“The Gishes also pried open the meetings of public agencies and took on corrupt politicians, rapacious coal companies and bad schools,” from the Herald Leader article. A local police officer torched the newspaper in 1974 and was never jailed for the crime.
Learning of Tom Gish’s impending demise, that article led me back to this one. And the hard and rough and tumble fight that families, mine workers, reporters, and really concerned individuals have to take in the face of the overwhelming fact that to these companies, people are just numbers; just cogs in the wheel that are replacable. If the people were important to these corporrate and independent coal companies, bottom line: the mines would be safer than they had to be. These owners know that down there in the mine that life can turn on a dime and yet they aren’t willing to spend money to safeguard those lives if it means that it will reduce profits.
Writers like Dennis Burke and Tom Gish and magazines and newspapers are willing to stick their necks out to inform the public. This article draws you in and shows you the selfless humanity and expertise of the miners who go down in those mines everyday and confirm the things that Tom Gish has exposed in eastern Kentucky for fifty years.
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November 21st, 2008 at 5:23 pm
As for Mr. Burke say he tried to contact the familis is nothing but hog wash cause there was no calls or e-mails form Mr. burke so such lies are heartless and is nothing more then being a coward.I have contacted you Mr. Burke by e-mail and have phone messages for you to return my calls and you have not. WHY?……As for anyone knowing what us 12 families has gone through you will never know and you will never know what we are still going through. My dad was Jim Bennett and my name is Ann Bennett and I have to say how could lies be published and why is it so important for the public to profit from our grief? Mine safety isn’t much better then it was before Sago happened yes us families done all we could do to better the safety of the men still in the mines but it should have been safer before and then maybe our fathers, husbands and brothers and uncles would still be with us today. No body prayed for the rescue of these men more then us families and as for Randal he came out he has his family for the holidays he gets to watch his kids grow up he gets to do things with his family as a family. Who does my mom have to spend her time with who does my brother and I have to go to for fatherly advice who is missing at our dinner tables during holidays and family get togethers let me tell you our father my mothers husband.The other 11 miners families are enduring the same thing. That is a tear jerking story not this story yea it’s tear jerking for us 12 Sago families cause the biggest part of it is lies. And Randal lied to the families. And another sad thing is that I just got my first grandchild and she will never get to meet her paw paw to know what a wonderful man he was and how he was a great christian man and a good provider for his family. If this story gave such a heavy heart to the nation think about what it did to us 12 families.When you Mr. Burke and Randal are sitting down to your holiday dinners and enjoying the gifts and food I want you to think about the 12 Sago families think about how we are missing our men and how the spot at the dinner table is empty cause there is one missing. And think about just exactly how we feel the emptiness that we have and the lonliness the widows of these men and the children will have. Hope You have a Good holiday season cause I know us families will still be missing our loved to enjoy our holidays with. I want to thank you for making us have to relive what we went through on that cold Janusry 2,2006. You have got to be the most cold hearted person around to do this to us families. How could you?
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November 21st, 2008 at 5:41 pm
My goodness, Ms. Bennett. I have not received any mail or calls from you at all. I have asked the moderator of this page to send my email address to you so we can make that connection. My few contacts with the families, as I stated, have gone unanswered. –Dennis
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November 21st, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Ann Bennett’s anger is understandable. Life is not fair, and I can only begin to imagine what she and all those who loved the dead miners have gone through, and continue to go through. Still, the article was a revelatory account of the event, the ultimate meaning of which can only come from its effect on the unacceptably cavalier, business-as-usual oversight of mine safety. The more widespread the knowledge of the tragedy, the more likely that positive change will prevent its repetition.
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November 21st, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Mr Burke if the moderator of this page was to send your e-mail address to me then where is I would really like to have it or is this another one of your cowardly ways hoping that I will just let this go cause I won’t let it go. here is my e-mail address haircutter2024@yahoo.com. This way they can send it to me and you won’t have to say that you contacted the families when really you didn’t. And one more thing Mr. Burke if you say you contacted the families via e-mail or phone calls and you got no replies back why would you go ahead and publish a story such as this? It’s wrong and heartless I am angry because of the lies in this story and because we didn’t give you permission to publish this. I think you need to get the facts straight about what all did really happen before you do this again and hurt other people as you have hurt us 12 Sago families. Do you not care how we would have felt? Do even realize what we 12 families have gone through since this has happened? Do you even have a heart?
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November 21st, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Thanks, Ann, for your contact info and for our long phone call. I learned a lot more about your Dad, who was indeed a great guy. –Dennis
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November 22nd, 2008 at 10:38 pm
My name is Cyrena Bennett what you did to all 12 families was wrong and all the hurt you caused I hope God will have mercy on your soul
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November 22nd, 2008 at 10:46 pm
I set hear and read these comments how can someone like you hurt us like you have done. Know one can ever know the feeling of hurt that all 12 families have had to go through. I came to wva with my friend when all this happen i set there for 3 days and watched these 12 families be torn apart. Now have have married James Bennetts son John and all this stort did for his family is releave those 12 days of HELL randle promised all the families he would speak to us first but he didnt he lied just like your story has lied if your going to print about sago then you should get all the facts and permission from the 12 families which you didnt.
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November 23rd, 2008 at 11:58 am
I want to thank Mr. Burke for his sensitive, heartfelt article. It was a painful one to read and my heart goes out to the families of the twelve who passed. Reading it, I felt a deep empathy for the miners, which is probably what kept me glued to the article and also left me enraged by the end about how much more still needs to be done to remedy the regulatory problems that led to this disaster.
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November 23rd, 2008 at 5:48 pm
You Mr. Burke are a liar about contacting families. Our family has recieved no contact from you in any means. My wife Peggy Cohen and I have talked to other families which have not had any contact from you. Jonh Groves the brother of Jerry Groves has tried to call you with no reply several times. There is a lot of inaccurate info. in the story. Its not the fact you published the story its the fact that the families were lyed to by McCoy and the timing of the story. You should talked to all the families invovled to collect the info before writting the story.
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November 24th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Maybe those family members who did receive an attempted call in advance of publication, or who received a call from Men’s Journal attempting to obtain photos of the men, or who received the article itself in advance would be kind enough to post a comment.
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November 28th, 2008 at 1:56 am
My ex husband was Fred G. Ware, Jr. one of the deceased Sago Miners. I endured the anger, rage, and pain becuase I was there at the beginning at the Sago Church with my daughter, Peggy Ware Cohen. The timing of your story, Mr. Burke, was very poor. My daughter called me on the phone the day she received this email with your story and was hysterically crying. I just don’t understand how you can sit there and say you contacted the families. I can speak for my daughter that if you contacted her she would have loved to speak about her father so that the world got the real image of him. She received no contact from you or the journal. My daughter spent endless hours researching and reading transcripts for the public hearings and did lots of traveling to Washington to get the Miners Act passed. She has taken a terrible tragedy and turned it into a positive experience. However, a story like this just causes all the pain to resurface. If you are going to be writing stories about theses great men THEN MAKE SURE YOUR INFORMATION IS ACCURATE!!!!!!! Now that my daughter has to live without her father. Enjoy your holidays with your family because my daughter will be greiving yet another holiday and placing her Christmas wreath she made on her deceased father!!!!!!!!!!
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November 28th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
The facts of the article were carefully researched and then separately fact-checked, line-by-line, by research professionals at the magazine. If you have any information that contradicts the article, or information that should be added, please send to Burke@CoalFacts.INFO. Thanks.
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January 2nd, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Ann and Brenda – I’m so sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine the horror that you and our families went through. The media is never going to be 100% correct about what happened. I corrected the Washington Post in a Letter to the Editor about mistakes they made in portraying Buckhannon. (I’m a native – my birth home is about 3 miles from the mine. Also, my brother is a miner and my uncle owned a mine in southern WV.)
However, perhaps there is one good thing about this story. If it helps to raise people’s awareness about the dangers of coal mining, then maybe it did some good. Maybe the legacy of your loved ones is that the safety policies put into place as a result of this tragedy will help to save another miner’s life. This country does not need electricity so badly that we have to put our loved ones lives in danger. Perhaps this next administration will see fit to enforce the laws that are already in place.
I can only hope to have some of the courage, honor, and integrity that your fathers and brothers displayed in that mine. My brother-in-law, Ross Straight, is trying to capture that in the sculpture he is designing for the Sago Miners Memorial in Philippi.
I will be praying for you and your families Ann and Brenda. May God bless all of you.
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August 21st, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Why all the negativity
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