Editorial: A moment turns joy to agony

Thursday, Jan. 5, 2006 | 7:31 a.m.

An accident that leaves miners trapped hundreds of feet underground forms a horrifying mental picture the instant a person hears of it. If that person is a relative of one of the trapped miners, or a friend or colleague, the picture immediately produces deep emotional responses, including grief, fright and panic.

The emotions are compounded by a lack of news. The wait for word of the miners' fate is excruciating. In Sago, W.Va., early Wednesday morning, relatives of 13 coal miners trapped since early Monday were jubilant when word arrived that 12 of the men had survived.

Who can imagine the numbing grief and anger they felt three hours later? It was then that mine officials corrected the first report. In fact, just one miner had lived. The others were all dead.

The tragic misunderstanding occurred when mine officials and rescue supervisors were listening to rescuers on a speaker phone. The Washington Post reported that the rescuers said they had found 12 miners and were checking their vital signs. Everyone in the room, the newspaper reported, believed they were being told the men had been found alive. Word quickly spread to the relatives gathered at a nearby Baptist church.

As one can easily imagine and understand, those gathered at the church experienced an emotional breakdown when they heard from a mine supervisor what had actually happened. News service reports described rage, chaos, uncontrollable grief. No one intended to inflict such pain. Nevertheless, the loved ones' joy was turned to agony in a moment, an agony that will last their lifetimes.

Such mine accidents happen all too frequently in this country and most fade from the public's memory in time. But the memory of this one, with the relatives having been doubly traumatized, seems destined to linger, particularly as reporting from the mine has revealed it has been cited numerous times over the past four years for serious safety violations. We hope this tragedy -- caused by an explosion -- leads to greater federal, state and industry emphasis on the safety of mines and the workers who descend into them every day.