This is rather extraordinary:
Sago Mine survivor Randal McCloy Jr., looking thin and stiff but walking on his own, offered his gratitude Thursday as he was released from a hospital after almost three months.
”I’d just like to thank everybody for their thoughts and prayers” McCloy said softly, wearing a ball cap and a racing-team jacket at a morning news conference. He paused, then added with a weak smile, ”I believe that’s it.”
His doctors say they can’t explain why McCloy, who was trapped underground for more than 40 hours after the Jan. 2 mine explosion, survived the carbon monoxide exposure while all 12 other miners with him died. Medical crews at the mine and the doctors who first treated him have said McCloy, too, was close to death.
I listened to the press conference this morning while riding the bus to work, and it really is amazing how quickly he has recovered, especially considering he was unresponsive until Valentine’s Day. Governor Manchin, who I normally like a great deal, irritated me a little bit when he claimed the recovery was ‘proof of a higher power’ (which made me wonder why the higher power killed the other 12), but this extraordinary and a good day for McCloy and his family.
Pb
Obviously, that’s proof of a ‘lower power’, i.e., Satan! Hey, why bother using Occam’s Razor when you can just invent dieties instead?
Nikki
Yeah, John, I thought it was your best line in the post, too.
Vlad
“His doctors say they can’t explain why McCloy, who was trapped underground for more than 40 hours after the Jan. 2 mine explosion, survived the carbon monoxide exposure while all 12 other miners with him died.”
I think the truth is obvious: McClory killed the other miners down in the shaft with his bare hands, then drank their blood in order to combine their strength with his own and increase his odds of survival.
More seriously, I’m glad to see him make a full recovery. Even if he is a cold-blooded cannibal.
Steve
I understand where you are coming from, John, but it’s commonly accepted that if a plane crashes and there is 1 survivor, somehow God gets credit for a miracle even though hundreds of other people are dead.
It’s kind of like how Bush gets all the credit for pro-democracy rumblings in Lebanon, but he has no responsibility whatsoever for the election results in Iran and Palestine!
scs
Maybe this was evolution at work. If events like this continue for miners, and the oxygen savers always survive and the oxygen users perish, eventually there will be an evolutionary adaption among mining familes to lack of oxygen- a new anarobic race perhaps. Hey, just a thought.
Tom
Mining- Another job Americans won’t do.
SmilingPolitely
Yes, a higher power was at work here. The miner’s thin, noodly appearance testifies to that…
Thank you, Flying Spaghetti Monster!
Ramen!
KC
I’m just glad the guy is alive. If the Gov. thinks it’s because he has got a phone line to God, so be it. What an ordeal to go through.
The Other Steve
I actually have no problem whatsoever with the Governor saying that he attributes this to a higher power.
He can say “Praise God”, “Thank God”, “Praise the Lord”, “God Bless Him”, whatever.
I’ve only got a problem when people bear false witness against the word of the Lord, and try to use it to turn people against one another. The shit Falwell, Robertson, Ralphy Reed, James Dobson and others do daily.
Mr Furious
BWAH! You caught me completely off-guard with that one, Vlad. Good thing I wasn’t drinking anything…
Richard 23
OT, but Jill Carroll was just released too. Both releases are good news.
Punchy
Maybe he passed out first, thus lowering his metabolism, while the others searched for an exit, thus being more active and inhaling more CO2, thus dying first.
Lesson: being lazy saves lives.
ppGaz
Higher power? Obviously the other 12 were Democrats.
Angry Engineer
Yea, I was surprised to see that this guy isn’t a vegetable.
I blame the other 12 deaths on labor unions.
Richard 23
Yeah, right. That makes a lot of sense. Sure.
WyldPirate
Shit. John said something I agree with whole heartedly.
I just don’t understand the reasoning motivating relatively sentient human beings crediting their magical, invisble cloud-riding Sky Daddy for saving some folks from a disaster and sacrificing others.
Perhaps the magical Sky Daddy was pleased with the personal cheese eating of those he saved…or perhaps it’s just some kind of demented old-timey Calvinist wankerism.
Bob In Pacifica
It’s amazing how people get their asses kicked and they thank God they’re alive.
By the way, someone might want to ask the Governor what the Higher Power thinks about mine inspections.
ppGaz
I think it’s called “erring on the side of caution.”
Jon H
They changed the name of the road the guy lives on to something like “Miracle Road”.
I wonder how the other families feel about *that*.
Krista
Still, I would pay money to someday see a football team, after having lost the Super Bowl, to say “Yeah, God screwed us over, big-time! Fuck you, Father of all Creation!”
The Other Steve
You don’t have to understand. Faith is not something that has to be logical or reasonable. It’s psychological.
But there’s nothing wrong with that.
One word: Caddyshack!
When the Bishop says “There is no God”, after getting hit by lightning.
scs
Yes I think I also may be the product of that evolutionary lesson.
scs
I read a really good article a while back, maybe after Katrina, in the Guardian or The London Times, forget which (maybe by Gerard Baker?) , anyway – who theorized that American’s were and always have been so religious, compared to Europeans, due to the harsh climate we constantly struggle with. Unlike the Brits, he said, who get little trouble from their reliable island, Americans have to deal with floods, wildfires, hurricanes, tornados, etc. So basically we can be wiped away at any time by Mother Nature. And because of that, Americans have learned to cope with their fearsome surroundings by believing enthusiastically in a higher power, to help them survive the disasters by praying and to comfort them when they don’t. It made sense and put it all together for me.
don surber
Wife getting him a red Mustang for his birthday
Good woman!
Our women treat us right in West Virginia
Angry Engineer
You may wish to pull your sarcasm meter into the shop for some recalibration.
don surber
His new ride will look almost as cool as this: