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Note: Miners lived 10 hours after blast

Miner's daughter bothered that rescue didn't begin for 11 hours

A technician collects an air sample to see if the gases that killed the miners have dissipated.

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First of miners' notes found (9:10)

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• Behind the Scenes: At Sago Mine

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PHILIPPI, West Virginia (AP) -- In the darkness of the Sago Mine, one of 12 trapped coal miners scrawled a timeline detailing how he and some of the other men were alive but losing air at least 10 hours after an underground explosion, his daughter said Saturday.

"Each time he documented, you could tell it was getting worse," Ann Merideth told The Associated Press of the note written by her father, 61-year-old shuttle car operator Jim Bennett. "Later on down the note, he said that it was getting dark. It was getting smoky. They were losing air."

If he was lucid enough to be writing 10 hours after the blast, he could have been saved -- but the rescue operation didn't move fast enough, Merideth said Saturday.

The first rescuers didn't go into the mine until 11 hours after the blast, a lag officials said was necessary to clear the mine of high concentrations of poisonous gases. When the miners were brought out more than 40 hours after the blast, there was only one survivor. (Miner profiles)

"I'm not sure how many miners went and was able to live as long as my father had, which I'm sure most of them did, and it really bothers me because it took them so long," Merideth said.

International Coal Group CEO Ben Hatfield, whose company operates the mine, said Saturday that the rescuers had to follow state and federal laws that requires a methodical approach to avoid rescuers getting trapped, injured or killed.

"It is painful, and it's slow, and it was maddening as we were all just doing our level best as we were attempting to get there," Hatfield said. "And we're going to do our best to make sure that families understand."

Bob Friend, the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration's acting deputy assistant secretary of labor, echoed Hatfield's words, saying a primary concern in such a rescue operation is the safety of the rescue teams.

Monday's explosion killed one miner immediately. Eleven others were found huddled 2 miles inside the mine behind a plastic curtain they had erected to keep out deadly carbon monoxide.

The lone survivor, 26-year-old Randal McCloy Jr., remained critically ill Saturday with possible brain damage from oxygen deprivation and carbon monoxide poisoning. However, doctors at a Pittsburgh hospital said he was showing dramatic signs of recovery, including flickering his eyes. (Watch a doctor explain McCloy's condition)

Merideth said her father's note, given to the family Friday by the medical examiner, has three or four entries, the first at 11:40 a.m. Monday, about five hours after the blast, and the final entry, with words getting fainter and trailing off the page, at 4:25 p.m., nearly 10 hours after the blast.

"He didn't know how much more time he had. But he wanted everybody to know to tell my mom that he loved her," she said. "And he wanted me and my brother to know that he loved us."

She said she had suspected there would have been a last note from her father, a deeply religious man who prayed for his fellow miners every day and planned to retire this year.

"Well, we got one yesterday. Bless his heart," Merideth said. She shared the details but did not provide a copy to the AP.

Tony Oppegard, a former MSHA official who has worked in mine safety for 25 years, said Bennett's note points out the need for miners to have oxygen systems that can last longer. He added that the miner's timeline suggests that the barricaded group found a pocket of clean, usable air that would have allowed them to use their oxygen systems only intermittently. (Read about other miners' notes)

And while Oppegard understands concerns by families that the rescuers didn't move faster, he said rescues are very dangerous and have to be done with "all deliberate speed." In 1976, 11 rescuers died when there was a second mine explosion in Letcher County, Kentucky.

"You don't have a bunch of cowboys rushing in," he said.

In Pittsburgh, doctors treating McCloy said his injured muscles were improving, along with his liver and heart function, and tests showed his brain swelling was reducing.

His brother-in-law Rick McGee, who also works in the Sago Mine, said he believed McCloy was communicating with the family, even though he remained sedated.

"I was talking to him about fishing, since we fish all the time. He nodded his head real easy," McGee said.

McCloy's wife, Anna, played some of his favorite music, the heavy-metal band, Metallica. McGee said Williams had called the family and said he hoped to visit.

The first visitations ahead of funerals for the miners also began Saturday, with their funerals scheduled Sunday through Tuesday.

After their wrenching vigil of raised and shattered hopes during the recovery effort was played out in front of television cameras, the families took pains to carry out their grieving in private. (Read how family members were led to believe their loved ones were alive)

Police cars lined up to keep television trucks, reporters and others away from the visitation for 28-year-old David Lewis in Philippi. In Buckhannon, two state troopers guarded the entrance to a funeral home to keep reporters out of the visitation for 51-year-old Alva Bennett.

Federal and state investigators have yet to enter the Sago Mine, where additional ventilation holes are being drilled to purge the mine of poisonous gases, a process that may not be completed for a few days.

Although the mine is closed, Hatfield met with about 145 employees Saturday to assure them there will be no layoffs. He said employees would be paid for the whole week and offered them temporary jobs at ICG's other mines in the region, The company has operations in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Illinois.