Surviving Miner Awakening From Coma

Doctors said Wednesday that Sago Mine survivor Randal McCloy Jr. is breathing on his own and appears to be coming out of a coma, more than two weeks after a mine explosion that led to the deaths of 12 other miners.

"With great hope we announce that Randy McCloy is awakening from his coma," said Dr. Julian Bailes, a neurosurgeon at West Virginia University's Ruby Memorial Hospital. "We consider him, probably best described, in a light coma."

Doctors hope to be able to move McCloy to a rehabilitation hospital within two weeks, where he would undergo at least four weeks of therapy.

McCloy is also moving his extremities, swallowing, exhibiting facial movement and his brain stem function remains normal.

Bailes said McCloy now responds to his name and the family believes "he has some level of connectivity with them."

But the 26-year-old McCloy has a long way to go, Bailes said, while cautioning about giving false hope for his recovery.

"In many ways we are in uncharted territory in predicting his recovery," Bailes said. "The long term outlook will be measured in weeks and months, and not days."

The blast is believed to have killed one miner immediately. State officials have said the others died of carbon monoxide poisoning. McCloy may have suffered brain damage from his exposure to the gas, but the extent of the damage won't be known until he regains consciousness.

The miners were remembered Sunday, along with McCloy, at a community memorial service in Buckhannon.

Doctors moved McCloy out of intensive care on Tuesday and said his heart and liver functions are recovering slowly, but he remains on dialysis because of his kidney damage. McCloy, of Simpson, has been breathing without assistance for several days.

Meanwhile, state and federal investigators continue interviewing a series of witnesses at a federal courthouse in Clarksburg. The exact number of people to be interviewed and how long the interviews would take was not immediately clear.

The interviews are being conducted in private with officials from the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration and the state Office of Miners' Health Safety and Training. Representatives for Ashland, Ky.-based International Coal Group Inc. and representatives from the United Mine Workers also were to attend.

The Sago Mine is nonunion, but several miners have asked the union to serve as their representative during the investigation, the UMW announced Tuesday.

Efforts to ventilate deadly gases from the mine continued Wednesday. A spokesman for ICG said the company doesn't know when it will be safe for investigators to re-enter the mine, which is about 100 miles north of Charleston.