Parting Notes

AP: Relative Says Some Miners Left Notes---

TALLMANSVILLE, W.Va. — Some of the 12 coal miners who died following an explosion left notes behind assuring family members that their final hours trapped underground were not spent in agony, a relative said Thursday.

"The notes said they weren't suffering, they were just going to sleep," said Peggy Cohen, who had been called to a makeshift morgue at a school to identify the body of her father, 59-year-old mining machine operator Fred Ware Jr.

Cohen said a note was not left with Ware's body, but that she planned to retrieve his personal belongings later Thursday to see if he left one in his lunch box. But she said the medical examiner told her notes left with several of the bodies all carried a similar message: "Your dad didn't suffer."

Ware was among a dozen miners who were found after 41 hours inside the mine. They were found at the deepest point of the Sago Mine, about 2 1/2 miles from the entrance, behind a fibrous plastic cloth stretched across an area about 20 feet wide to keep out deadly carbon monoxide gas.

Cohen said her father had the peaceful look of someone who died from carbon monoxide, and the only mark on his body was a bruise on his chest. "It comforts me to know he didn't suffer and he wasn't bruised or crushed. I didn't need a note. I think I needed to visualize and see him."