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Doctors: Survivor of Sago Mine tragedy able to stand with help

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - With a little help, the sole survivor of the Sago Mine disaster stood for the first time since the accident, and puckered his lips when his wife asked for a kiss, doctors said Friday.

Randal McCloy Jr., 26, came out of a coma earlier this week.

"In this business of taking care of severe head injuries, little things make us happy," Dr. Julian Bailes said.

McCloy can make noises when doctors cover his breathing tube. Whether he will be able to speak when the tube is removed depends on the extent of the brain damage he suffered from carbon monoxide during his 41 hours trapped underground, Bailes said.

Twelve fellow miners died after the explosion Jan. 2.

Doctors described McCloy as being within "moments if not hours from death" when he arrived at West Virginia University's Ruby Memorial Hospital on Jan. 4.

On Thursday, he was transferred to a rehabilitation center. He stood for the first time that day with help from medical aides, and later puckered his lips when his wife, Anna, asked for a kiss, said Dr. Russell Biundo, medical director at HealthSouth Mountain View hospital in Morgantown.

"There is definitely a better connection with her than anybody else," Biundo said. "What we all want is a connection so that when I say, "Lift one finger,' he does it. Boom, then we have a party."

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - For nearly a month, Gov. Joe Manchin has been a fixture on front pages and television news shows, handling back-to-back coal mining tragedies. And in doing so, he has won praise from people in his state and from those in the mining community.

In one day, the first-term Democrat ushered a landmark mine-safety bill through the state Legislature, then went to Washington to urge Congress to do the same.

"I'm a Republican, but if I ever meet the man, I will shake his hand because he has done a great job," said Donald Boylen, a retired coal miner who knew some of the men who died after the Jan. 2 explosion at International Coal Group's Sago Mine.

Manchin spent nearly 90 hours with miners' families over three weeks, first at Sago, then at Aracoma Coal's Alma No. 1 mine in Melville, where a conveyor belt fire killed two men.

"There's no other governor who's done that. There's governors who came and left, but he came and stayed," said Boylen, 66.

Manchin, 58, said he wants to downplay the attention.

"I'm very honored by this," he said, "but I think it's something that should be used very constructively for our state."

[Last modified January 28, 2006, 01:39:07]