AP News, August 22nd, 2007
For eight months, Glen Barker's body lay hundreds of feet underground _ far from relatives desperate to give him a proper funeral.
He had entered a coal mine in eastern Kentucky on March 11, 1976, to help sift through the debris left by a deadly explosion that killed 15 men just two days before. That evening, a second explosion killed Barker and 10 others.
To prevent yet another disaster, officials sealed off the mine, leaving 11 bodies beneath the earth until they could stabilize the conditions underground.
The memories of that day haunt Barker's widow, Shirley Clark, as she watches news coverage of the Utah mine disaster from her home in the coalfields.
"I know what they're going through," said Clark, of Cumberland, referring to the families of the six miners who were trapped underground more than two weeks ago.
"You've got that feeling that they're alive until you get them out _ no matter how long it takes," she added. "I held onto that hope."
Mine safety officials have determined the shaking and shifting of the mountain at central Utah's Crandall Canyon mine is too risky to let rescuers resume tunneling to try to reach the men, who have been trapped since the Aug. 6 cave-in.
Rescue efforts were suspended after three rescue workers were killed and six were injured when the shaft they were working in collapsed Thursday night.
Family members in Utah have accused the mine's owners and federal officials of abandoning their loved ones. A spokesman for the families has said that even if a rescue is impossible, efforts should be made to recover "our loved ones so that they can have a proper burial."
That's the only way families can fully cope with their loss, said Dean Wilcox, whose brother-in-law Don Polly also was killed in the second Kentucky mine explosion in 1976.
He recalled how his sister, Dolly Polly, who died five years ago, anxiously waited to receive her husband's body from the Letcher County mine.
"This past week has been reliving '76 all over again," said Wilcox, 63. "I feel for those miners out there," he added. "I hope they can get their bodies out."
Freda Sorah also knows how the agonizing wait feels. Sorah lost her husband, Joe Sorah, in an explosion at Jim Walter Resources No. 5 Mine in Brookwood, Ala., on Sept. 23, 2001, that killed 13 miners _ the nation's worst mining disaster in 17 years.
She was notified of her husband's death within the first 48 hours, but she had to wait 43 days to receive his body as officials flooded the mine to put out underground fires.
"The frustration is that's your husband _ a part of you laying down there," said Sorah, who moved back home to Kentucky after her husband's death.
"I know what these women are going through," she said of the wives of the Utah miners. "I know how they want to take their bare hands and claw into the ground for them."
