Randy McCloy and 12 others on his crew walked into a West Virginia coal mine in early January. After a terrible explosion, and nearly two days trapped miles underground, only Randy came out alive. He faces a long, hard road ahead, but doctors call his recovery "miraculous." Now, nearly three months later, he’s recovered enough to leave the hospital and go home. In this exclusive interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer, he shares his thoughts on life, death, and what he'll say to the families of the miners who died.
Matt Lauer: Do you remember, Randy, after the mine, when you were first told that you were the one who made it out alive and the others hadn't?
Randy McCloy: I believe that right there that probably upset me the most. 'Cause I just felt lonely, like, “Oh, I'm the only one.”
Randy McCloy is the sole survivor of one of the worst mining disasters in recent years. On January 2, a crew of 13 men reported for work at the Sago Coal Mine in West Virginia. For reasons that are still under investigation, there was a tremendous explosion, trapping the men two miles underground. For 42 hours, as the whole nation watched, rescuers struggled to reach them. When they did, 12 men were dead. Only Randy McCloy was alive, and just barely. This is the first time he's spoken publicly.
Lauer: How are you feeling this morning?
Randy McCloy: I'm all right.
Lauer: Hi, Anna.
Anna McCloy: Hi.
Lauer: How are you doing?
Anna: Fine.
Lauer: Thanks for talking to us, we appreciate it. C'mon let's take a walk.
We met Randy McCloy and his wife, Anna, at the rehabilitation hospital in West Virginia that has been their home for the past two months. Yes, they both lived here. Anna has refused to leave Randy's side. Their 4-year-old son, Randal, spends a lot of time here, and 16-month-old Isabelle visits too.
Lauer: So when he first came in here, he was basically in the prone position?
Anna: Yup, he wasn't opening his eyes, and uh, you know, he was moving that left arm a lot, and the left leg a little bit. But the right side wasn't moving at all.
Lauer: So, he couldn't say your name…
Anna: No.
Lauer: He couldn't say Randal, his son's name, or Isabelle.
Anna: No. In fact, we didn’t even know if he was gonna know who we were. I mean, you just never know with brain injury.
During his 42 hours trapped underground, Randy's brain was deprived of oxygen, the result of severe carbon monoxide poisoning. That's what killed his 12 co-workers. And, when Randy was first rescued, he was in a coma. No one knew if he would ever wake up.
Lauer: So when was the first time you realized, OK, he knows that it's me?
Anna: I was talking to him and I told him, I said, you know, Randy, I know that you can’t talk right now, but if you know who I am, just give me one kiss, and he kissed me.
Lauer: Did he lean up and do that or did he kiss your hand?
Anna: No, he leaned up. He leaned his head toward me.
Lauer: How hard did you cry? I'm almost crying.
Anna: I lost it, you know. I didn't — I never expected that.
Randy's doctors frankly have no idea why he survived. Or how he has made such a rapid recovery. But he will need intensive therapy for a long time to come.
Lauer: So you're a little frustrated with the speed of things.
Randy: Right.
Lauer: And yet everybody here seems to think that the progress you're making is going incredibly fast. But it’s just not fast enough for you.
Randy: That's probably right. [Laughs]
He's lost 30 pounds of muscle. His vision is impaired. His balance, skewed. Putting his shoes on is a daily trial. And there are basic things he can’t recall:
Therapist, Teresa: Do you remember what month it is?
Randy: Um ... August?
Teresa: March. And what year? 2,000 and...
Randy: Four?
Teresa: Six. 2006. You're doing a good job.
But Randy remembers a surprising amount about what happened to him in the Sago Mine.
Lauer: People in situations like that often ask themselves, "Why?"
Randy: Yeah. I did too.
Lauer: So, how do you answer that question? I mean, is it "there but for the grace of God..."?
Randy: Yeah, I'd say if you had to wrap it up in a nutshell, I'd say that'd be it.
Randy McCloy worked in the mine for one big reason: The money was good, and he had a wife and two small children to support. Early each morning, as he left for work, he performed a little ritual.
Lauer: You would say, "I love you." And…
Randy: Yeah.
Anna: "God loves you."
Lauer: And "God loves you."
Anna: To me and the kids. Every time he went somewhere or did something, you know, he'd say, "I love you and God loves you."
Randy: If I forgot, I had to turn back around.
On January 2, his good-bye could well have been final. The underground explosion knocked out the mine's electricity, and the ventilation system. Randy and his 12 co-workers were plunged into darkness.
Lauer: So, had you played out in your mind what you would do in the event of something horrible happening in that mine?
Randy: Yeah. But, you can really not tell yourself enough to be prepared, 'cause you're blindsided because you can't see. You're runnin' like a goose in the damn mine and you don't even know where you're goin'.
Lauer: And you have to hope that someone out there is looking for you.
Randy: Yup.
Up above, rescuers had arrived, but they didn't dare go into the mine. The air inside poisoned with carbon monoxide, there was the chance of a second explosion from methane or coal dust. Randy and his co-workers were on their own — with just an hour or so of emergency oxygen per man.
Lauer: Were you all strategizing Randy? Was there discussion, how do we do this? What should we do?
Randy: Well we all knew there was nothing you could do. We all knew that. We knew we was gonna end up taking the bullet on that one.
The hours passed. The oxygen ran out. Up above, 24 hours after the explosion, Anna McCloy was still convinced that Randy was going to make it.
Anna: My husband, if he's alive, he's going to come out of there. He knows what he's doing.
And, down in the mine, Randy was alive, but, one by one, the other miners were dying.
Lauer: How clear is your memory on what happened in that mine?
Randy: Pretty clear. I really don't wanna get into the details of it. But, some things happened that I'd rather I didn't see. But, I did.
He says he's not ready to talk about his friends' last moments, in part because he wants to share what he knows directly with the families.
Randy: I don't want anyone to, you know, say, "Well, I didn't hear about this and I gotta hear about it on the news." You know? I really don't want that to happen.
But we already know that some of the men wrote farewell notes to their families. Randy did.
Lauer: Can you tell me a little bit about what he said?
Anna: He just started out by sayin', "Anna, I love you so much." And told Randall to "trust in the Lord," and for Isabelle to "stay sweet." And that he didn't want us to grieve long. He wanted us to be happy and live. And he signed it, "Daddy."
Lauer: That's a hard thing, to have to say good-bye to someone on a piece of paper.
Randy: Yeah. Yes, it is. All kinds of things, you know? All kinds of things you wanna say and can't.
Up above, more than 40 hours now since the explosion, the families of the trapped miners were going through hell. Word reached the surface that rescuers had found 12 men alive.
But three hours later, that was revealed to be a terrible mistake. Only one miner was alive. The question for every family: Which one?
Lauer: Do you remember anything about rescuers coming over to you? Because they said you were moaning, you were gasping. Do you remember being rescued?
Randy: No, 'cause, I was, I had so much carbon monoxide in my lungs, I couldn't even breathe much, much less, you know, speak properly.
Twelve men lay dead. And yet, the searchers pulled Randy McCloy out of there alive.
Lauer: On TV, you said to me, if he's alive, he's going to come out of that mine.
Anna: Uh huh.
Lauer: And I remember thinking at the time: Anna, that's a wonderful positive attitude. And yet I was hoping that your dreams wouldn’t be dashed.
Anna: Oh, yeah. Well in the back of my mind I really wasn't sure, but then I knew Randy, and I knew his determination and his willpower and I knew his love for me and the kids, and I knew that if anybody was, it was gonna be him.
Lauer: So what you're seeing him do now is a part of what you've always known to be inside him.
Anna: Yup, always. It's the same old Randy, just a little more softhearted than before, but it's still the same Randy.
Randy says he's ready for the huge challenges he still faces.
Randy: It's kind of like saying, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."
And he knows that, compared to the men he went to work with on that fateful day, compared also to their families, he is a deeply lucky man.
Randy: I feel bad for 'em and I wish the best for 'em. I hope they can grieve and get it over with and then, try to live their life. And find a way to do that.
Lauer: You know, in some ways, maybe the best thing you can do for them is to keep getting better.
Randy: Yeah.
Anna: I think that's what's helped so far. Seeing him get better and knowing that there's at least one. And, you know, that's their miracle too, right here.