WV Miners left notes to families

[estranged4life]

Miners' notes: 'Your dad didn't suffer'

Men assured family they were 'just going to sleep,' says victim's daughter

TALLMANSVILLE, W.Va. - Some of the 12 coal miners who died following an explosion left notes behind assuring family members that their final hours trapped underground were not spent in agony, a relative said Thursday.

"The notes said they weren't suffering, they were just going to sleep," said Peggy Cohen, who had been called to a makeshift morgue at a school to identify the body of her father, 59-year-old mining machine operator Fred Ware Jr.

Cohen said a note was not left with Ware's body, but that she planned to retrieve his personal belongings later Thursday to see if he left one in his lunch box.

But she said the medical examiner told her notes left with several of the bodies all carried a similar message: "Your dad didn't suffer."

Ware was among a dozen miners who were found after 41 hours inside the mine. They were found at the deepest point of the Sago Mine, about 2½ miles from the entrance, behind a fibrous plastic cloth stretched across an area about 20 feet wide to keep out deadly carbon monoxide gas.

The sole survivor, 26-year-old Randal McCloy, remained in critical condition in a coma in a Morgantown hospital with a collapsed lung, dehydration and other problems.

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