TALLMANSVILLE, W.Va. -- In the waning moments of a life that ended in the darkness 260 feet underground, Martin Toler scratched out a short note of farewell and comfort.

	The Sago Mine Tragedy
	Martin Toler was among the men trapped in Sago Mine No. 1 who was able to leave a note of farewell and comfort to his loved ones: "Tell all I see them on the other side. JR. I love you. It wasn't bad. Just went to sleep." Click photo for larger image. RELATED COVERAGE Mine survivor now at AGH for hyperbaric treatments Tragedy on top of tragedy a test of biblical proportions

"Tell all I see them on the other side," the first part read. The hand was steady, said Mr. Toler's son, Chris. His father kept sheets of plain white paper with him on his shifts in the Sago coal mine because, as section foreman for the crew, he made note of anything that needed to be done.

Farther down the paper came a message Chris Toler believes his father added in the final moments:

"It wasn't bad. Just went to sleep."

And he did.

So did the other men trapped alongside him deep inside the mine. The note, "not addressed to anyone," according to Chris Toler, begins in a steady hand. After promising to meet his family on the other side, the second part of the message, the one about sleep, becomes shaky.

"The first one you could tell he was writing well," Chris Toler said. "The one that says it wasn't bad -- you could tell he didn't have much energy in the writing."

Mr. Toler's farewell message was one of several left behind by the men who huddled behind a makeshift barricade in a vain attempt to stave off the toxic air that engulfed the shaft after an explosion flashed and thundered through the mine early Monday.

Rescuers spent two days picking their way from point to point in the darkened mine, while crews drilled air and exploration holes from another end and workers tried to feed fresh air into the mine from the portal.

Peggy Cohen, the daughter of another of the dead miners, said medical examiners told her several miners had scratched out notes to family before dying. Her father, Fred Ware, a continuous mining machine operator, was among the 12 men found behind the makeshift barricade.

Only one, Randal McCloy, 26, was found alive, located because rescue crews heard him moaning. Mr. McCloy remained in critical condition yesterday after being moved from a Morgantown hospital to Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, with possible brain damage from lack of oxygen.

	Courtesy of the Toler family, via AP
	Martin Toler shown with his first grandchild, Cole.

Mrs. Cohen said she did not yet know if her father left a note and planned to look inside the lunch pail rescuers brought out with his other effects after the bodies were recovered Wednesday.

An emergency room nurse by profession, Mrs. Cohen said she identified her father's body at the makeshift morgue at a closed school in nearby Buckhannon, and believed Martin Toler's note assuring peaceful death was true.

"He had one small bruise on his chest," she said of her father, "but he had no scratches. It was probably the carbon monoxide. That's what it does -- it puts you to sleep.

"It comforts me to know he didn't suffer and he wasn't bruised or crushed," she added. "I didn't need a note. I think I needed to visualize and see him."

Mrs. Cohen said she opened her father's eyes at the morgue, so she could look into them one last time.

The bodies of the miners yesterday were taken to Charleston, 90 miles south of here, for autopsies. The first of the funerals are set to begin tomorrow, The Associated Press reported.

As state and federal officials began an investigation into the cause of the explosion, work picked up at the mine headquarters yesterday morning.

"We plan to reopen," said one office worker there.

With wages in the $700-per-week range, the Sago mine has been an important employer in Upshur County, albeit not among the state's larger producers of coal, an industry centered in West Virginia's southern counties bordering Virginia and Kentucky.

International Coal Group, the holding company that took control of the Sago mine last year, yesterday announced it was discontinuing daily news conferences updating the public on the investigation. Company Chairman Wilbur L. Ross issued a personal message of condolence.

"My heart goes out to these families," he said. "I personally understand their trauma since I lost my own father when I was a teenager and my widowed mother was left with three children, the youngest of whom was 8 years old."

The company announced plans for a $2 million relief fund for the miners and also called for contributions from the public.

Some family members, though, said they intended to sue the company, while others complained that their last communication with company officials was 3 a.m. Wednesday, when company president Ben Hatfield interrupted a celebration at a nearby church with news that earlier reports that 12 miners had survived were erroneous. Mr. Hatfield left the room amid catcalls and curses from some family members.

"The company has never called," said Jim Campbell, brother-in-law to one of the dead miners, Martin Bennett. "We're still evaluating what to say or do. There are just a lot of things that should have been handled better that weren't."

Helen Winans, mother of Marshall Winans, another of the dead miners, said her family also had not been contacted by ICG.

"There haven't been any of the big officials talked to me," she said. "None of them have asked me how I am doing."

International Coal yesterday issued a final list of the dead miners and Mr. Hatfield spent much of the day conferring with state and federal regulators about the investigation into what caused the explosion inside the mine.

"During the investigation phase, it is likely that new information will come in very slowly because it is essential that every aspect of what led to the tragedy be studied carefully before the findings are announced," the company said in a prepared statement.

An Arizona-based firm that monitors weather conditions under contract with the National Weather Service issued some tantalizing clues that might point to the source of the explosion, which occurred in a closed and sealed-off section of the mine.

Vaisala Inc. said it recorded three lightning strikes -- two of them simultaneous and one four times stronger than average -- atop the Sago mine between 5:57 and 6:26 a.m. the morning of the disaster.

The third strike, the strongest, hit along with a less powerful one at 6:26, roughly the time that the mine explosion occurred, sending up a wall of smoke that drove the miners deep into the earth in search of good air.

"A direct hit from a lightning flash would have the best possibility of igniting something," said Nick Demetriades, a meteorologist with Vaisala.

Mr. Campbell, Mr. Bennett's brother-in-law, said the mine had been closed for several days for the New Year's and Christmas holidays, enough time for methane gas to build up.

Other family members said they believe a lightning strike could have hit a conveyor that feeds coal from the end of the mine, allowing the charge to travel along the metal frame and ignite a pocket of methane.

A leading authority on lightning, Vladimir Rakov, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Florida, said lightning strikes have been documented igniting methane at depths of 700 to 1,200 feet in the United States. He said the 100-kiloampere strength of the one strike at the mine could, under proper conditions, easily have reached the shaft.

"One hundred kiloamps is a very large lightning current and it's certainly capable of igniting methane in a mine," he said.

The note was given to Martin's brother, Tom Toler, by the coroner. It reads "Tell all I see them on the other side JR I love you It wasn't bad just went to sleep"