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player ready...Jim Bennett was about to retire after decades in the mines; Randal McCloy was just getting started. Fred Ware Jr. was the son and grandson of miners; Terry Helms didn’t want to be the father of a miner.
For some of the men on the first shift at the Sago mine, digging coal was a job they loved. For David Lewis, it was the best way to finance his wife’s graduate school work and still see his kids at night.
The personal dynamics of the crew are hard to fathom, but from some accounts it appears Bennett was the crew’s spiritual leader.
When the 61-year-old miner returned home to Philippi from a shift, he was praying for the men who went in after him. As the rescue was still unfolding, Bennett’s older brother, Donald Marsh, imagined Jim was “keeping all of them on their knees.”
Relatives said Bennett had planned to retire this year.
People who work in the mines say it helps to have a good relationship with God. One of those killed in the disaster, Marshall Winans, 50, had worked at the Sago mine for six years but had been a minister for 20, said his sister-in-law, Lisa Ferris.
Nick Helms said his father, Terry, 50, “worked 12-hour days and would come home dog-tired,” but wanted better for his son. He encouraged his son to move to South Carolina six months ago to pursue his dream of being a pro golfer.
Ware had been in the mines 41 years, starting at age 18 in coal seams so thin “he had to crawl on his knees,” said his ex-wife, Brenda Newcomer.
Lewis, 28, had started working in the mines just 21/2 years ago. He had worked in the timber industry and construction, but those jobs kept him away from his wife, Samantha, and his three young daughters too long.
“This was a good way to make a living,” Samantha Lewis said, “until we could find something different.”
At 26, McCloy, the lone survivor, was the youngest miner. His father, Randal McCloy Sr., has no way of knowing it, but said he believes his son’s older colleagues shared their dwindling oxygen supplies to help him get home to his two young ones.
“I just believe that’s what happened,” he said. “Those men were like brothers. They took care of each other.”