Buckhannon Mine Disaster

[SOPi_Jawbreaker]

Surviving Miner Gets 2nd Oxygen Treatment

By DANIEL LOVERING

PITTSBURGH (AP) - The lone survivor of a coal mine explosion underwent two oxygen treatments and remained under sedation as he struggles to recover from brain damage and other injuries, doctors said Friday.

Doctors stressed it would take time before the extent of the brain damage is known.

Randal McCloy Jr. was taken by ambulance Thursday from West Virginia University's Ruby Memorial Hospital to Allegheny General Hospital, where he remained in critical condition Friday.

Dr. Richard Shannon, who is leading the team of doctors treating the miner, said McCloy's first oxygen treatments went well. Doctors said McCloy has shown some movements when his medications are reduced at times.

``We'll keep him medically sedated as long as possible,'' Shannon said.

``The coma at the moment is medically induced,'' Shannon said. ``When the medications are weened or reduced, Mr. McCloy does move; Mr. McCloy does bite down on his tube; Mr. McCloy does appear to flicker his eyelids. All those things are true. I don't want to let anyone to think that is some clear indication whatsoever of the nature of the extent of his recovery or injury.''

His wife, Anna, had said earlier Friday that she felt her husband, 26, was reacting to her.

``I know he knows when I'm there because when I'm there, he gets excited,'' she said on ABC's ``Good Morning America.'' She said he also reacted when she brought their two children to see him.

McCloy was brought to Pittsburgh to undergo treatment in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, which bombards the body with oxygen to battle the carbon monoxide poisoning. He completed a second session in the chamber Friday morning.

He could not have been moved from West Virginia any sooner because his condition was unstable, doctors said.

Dr. Antonio Zikos said results of the oxygen treatments won't be immediately known, adding that the treatments were a supplement ``to all the other treatments he's been getting.''

Zikos, whose specialty is pulmonary medicine, said McCloy's left lung, which had been collapsed, was doing well Friday. Doctors found a small clot in his lungs, which they described as not serious.

Zikos also said McCloy's kidneys were stabilized. He had small hemorrhages in his brain, but that they were ``a minor issue'' and have been stabilized, the doctor said.

Earlier, Dr. Lawrence Roberts, director of the West Virginia University's trauma center, said there had been some small improvement in McCloy's responsiveness, but he warned that there would not be a miraculous recovery in the hyperbaric chamber.

``We don't expect to put him in the chamber and have him open his eyes and start talking to us,'' Roberts said.

McCloy was rescued early Wednesday after being trapped in the Sago Mine near Tallmansville for more than 42 hours. Twelve other miners died.

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

McCloy's father, Randal McCloy Sr., told The Associated Press that he believes - though he has no evidence to support it - that his son survived because his older colleagues dragged him to their makeshift hiding place and shared the last of their oxygen with him because he was the youngest, and had two small children at home.

``Those men were like brothers. They took care of each other,'' he said.