By Brian Bowling Tribune-Review
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Relatives of those killed in the Sago Mine explosion look forward to a hearing next month, saying they have yet to get the full truth of what happened on Jan. 2. "I think we're going to find out information that only ICG knows," said John Groves, 43, of Cleveland, W.Va., who lost a brother. "We feel that ICG is only releasing information that is only benefiting them."
Jerry Groves, 56, was one of 12 miners who died as a result of the explosion in the Upshur County, W.Va., mine, owned by International Coal Group. Only one survived.
Groves said transcripts of recorded, voluntary testimony of some employees and officials contain enough contradictions to convince him and other relatives that they're not getting the full story of the events surrounding the explosion.
A spokeswoman for the Ashland, Ky., coal company said ICG has released all the information it has. ICG officials previously said the company's investigation had determined the explosion was caused by a lightning strike setting off methane that had built up in a sealed-off section of the mine.
Company officials will testify under subpoena during a May 2 hearing in Buckhannon, leading relatives to hope that contradicting information will be sorted out.
The explosion trapped 12 miners in a section known as Two Left because it was the second branch of the mine to the left. The testimony of Owen Jones, section boss for another group that was riding an electric vehicle known as a mantrip into One Left, provides a graphic description of the blast.
"I mean, more wind and dust than you could even think about. There was no warning, no nothing -- just it was right there on us," Jones testified.
"So I get on top of the mantrip to try to run it to get out of it somewhere, somehow, and it blows me off the top of the mantrip -- the wind does. And I'm standing there, and it's pushing me forward. It's making me walk. And I'm thinking it's going to absolutely pick me up and throw me, I mean, and then it quits."
James Klug, captain of a Consol Energy mine rescue team, testified the team found the 12 miners by following the sound of the labored breathing of the sole survivor, Randal McCloy Jr., 26, of Simpson, W.Va. The team members checked and rechecked the other miners for signs of life, but couldn't find any.
"We were getting close on air, and it was just time to go, and I made the decision to leave. So we carried him all the way out, nonstop, switching people carrying while we were running," Klug testified.
Christopher Lilly, captain of a multi-company mine team, described how McCloy's breathing was so shallow it couldn't activate the "self-rescuer" breathers the miners were using for oxygen. The rescuers provide an initial puff of oxygen, so the team kept opening new ones on the run out of the mine to give McCloy oxygen.
"He kept spitting them out, and we just kept throwing a new one on him," Lilly said.
Jeff Bennett, a West Virginia mine inspector, provided the oxygen canister that solved the problem.
"I didn't know if it was somebody from the mine rescue team had went down or if it was one of the miners. We didn't ask any questions. He needed to get to the outside. So we put my apparatus on him," he testified.
The transcripts also show that company employees failed to follow federal regulations when they built the seal that was supposed to protect miners from any explosion in the abandoned section of the mine, Groves said.
Federal researchers tested a similar seal last weekend at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health's Lake Lynn Laboratory, a research mine near Morgantown, W.Va.
The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration is leading the investigation into the explosion.
Groves said the Sago families pushed the agency to give them copies of the transcripts. "We wanted to see for ourselves" what investigators were discovering, he said.
The Charleston Gazette obtained copies of the 75 transcripts and put them online at wvgazettemail.com/static/sago/.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/regional/s_445139.html
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm