'Miracle Miner' Fighting For Life

The lone survivor of a coal mine explosion that killed 12 others is a quiet family man who would likely cringe at his newly bestowed title "miracle miner," relatives said.

Randal McCloy Jr., 26, did not like working in the mines but stuck it out for three years because it enabled him to provide for his wife and two children, a 4-year-old son Randal III and 1-year-old daughter Isabel, family members said.

"I know he was fighting to stay alive for his family because his family was his No. 1 priority," said Rick McGee, McCloy's brother-in-law and a fellow miner who lives next door to McCloy in this small town 37 miles southeast of Morgantown.

McCloy was rescued early Wednesday after being trapped in the Sago Mine near Tallmansville for more than 42 hours. Despite being in critical condition from an extended lack of oxygen, he was still able to communicate by making facial expressions and squeezing his wife's hand from his bed at West Virginia University's Ruby Memorial Hospital.

McCloy's blood pressure, heart rate and other laboratory tests were relatively normal, but his doctor said Wednesday that McCloy was still struggling with the effects of the oxygen deprivation on his heart, liver, kidneys and perhaps his brain.

"Having been laying still for so many hours and being poorly hydrated for that period of time has resulted in some kidney dysfunction," said Dr. Lawrence Roberts. "We assume that will be a temporary phenomenon while the kidneys recover."

The miners had been trapped 260 feet below the surface of the Sago Mine since an explosion early Monday. Authorities had told families late Tuesday that 12 of the 13 had survived, 41 hours after they became trapped, but officials later reversed themselves, prompting

The false information and three hours of waiting for relatives before they were told McCloy was the only survivor made the announcement even more painful, CBS News correspondent Bob Orr

McCloy was undergoing dialysis treatment, and doctors were trying to inflate a collapsed lung. He was sedated to prevent him from removing a tube inserted in his throat to ease his breathing. Because of the tube, McCloy cannot yet talk.

He was the youngest of the 13 miners. Most of the others were in their 50s. Roberts said McCloy's youth and good health were a factor in his survival but stressed he did not know the health status of the other miners.

"When most people are drinking pop, he's drinking milk and juice. He's in good shape. That had to have helped him," said McGee, who has known McCloy for 12 years and coached two of his brothers in baseball.

Close ties through family and friendship are not unusual in West Virginia towns like Simpson, where the same families have raised children for generations.

McGee lives next door to McCloy in a doublewide mobile home up a slight slope from McCloy's powder-blue single-wide. Homes in Simpson are spread among woods in a small valley dissected by railroad tracks and a stream.

McCloy's yard, reached by a muddy, unpaved driveway, is filled with the debris of a family with two small children: a trampoline, basketball hoop, picnic table and toy trucks and cars. A creek runs by the front of the house.

McGee says McCloy likes to pass the time walking in the woods looking for deer.

"He is a typical guy, liked hunting, fishing, sports, fast cars," McGee said.

Ben Hatfield, president and CEO of International Coal Group, which owns the mine, guessed that McCoy may have been deeper in a barricade area that he and 11 other miners created after the explosion early Monday, and therefore further from toxic gasses. A 13th miner died in another location.

After three years as a miner, McCloy was looking for other work because of the danger, said his wife, Anna, who spoke earlier as she awaited word on the miners. Her father, Charles Green, said McCloy has been studying to be an electrician.

While McGee said he plans to return to mining as soon as he recovers from back surgery, McCloy likely will not.

"His wife said he's not going back," Green said. "And she rules."

Anna McCloy, looking pale and exhausted, attended a news conference at the hospital Wednesday but did not answer questions.

"Just ask everybody to keep on praying," she said.