Pam Panchak, Post-Gazette The helicopter crew from West Virginia University Hospital prepares to transport Randal McCloy back to WVU Hospital from the Allegheny General Hospital helipad last night. Click photo for larger image. To send an e-card The hospital's Web site offers the public the opportunity to send a get-well e-card to Mr. McCloy by logging onto www.wpahs.org.

Randal McCloy Jr. returned by helicopter to Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, W.Va., last night, his doctors in Pittsburgh confident that the coal miner's recovery can continue there after three hyperbaric oxygen treatments at Allegheny General Hospital.

"He is not out of the woods," said Dr. Richard Shannon, chairman of the Department of Medicine at Allegheny General. "This has been a long three days, and this is going to be a long recovery. But he has tolerated treatment exceptionally well."

Mr. McCloy, the 26-year-old survivor of the Sago mine explosion on Jan. 2 in Tallmansville, W.Va., was showing signs of improved brain stem and organ function yesterday, said Dr. Shannon. "He has begun to flicker his eyelashes, he bites on a tube, and his attempts to swallow are developing." Mr. McCloy was also breathing with "much reduced support," he said.

Mr. McCloy, who was brought to Pittsburgh Thursday afternoon from Ruby Memorial, underwent his third hyperbaric oxygen treatment yesterday afternoon. The hyperbaric chamber is a specialty treatment that doctors at Ruby had requested of Allegheny General.

"We were honored and privileged to be asked," said Dr. Shannon. After the success of the third treatment, he said, "the function we have been asked to perform is probably completed. My colleagues in West Virginia saved this man's life, but we are willing to participate in helping this guy recover in any way we can."

Dr. Shannon reiterated that the patient's prognosis for complete recovery "has no good indicator other than his youth. There is evidence of neurological damage, but what can't be measured are the clinical consequences of that. That's going to be the rest of the story."

A CAT scan yesterday morning did show improvement in the condition of the brain's white matter, which had been hemorrhaging and indicated edema, or swelling. The edema is improving and the hemorrhaging is not worse, said Dr. Shannon. The progress "may be a result of natural healing or the steroids," he said.

"His muscle injury continues to resolve, liver function continues to improve, as well as the function of the heart. I feel confident with his clinical condition that he can be moved. If I did not believe he was clinically stable," he wouldn't be moved, Dr Shannon said.

Mr. McCloy will need to be ventilated and dialyzed "for the forseeable future," he said. None of Mr. McCloy's functions is normal, but his progress so far makes it easier to hope they will be, he said. The patient's cardiac output, blood pressure and heart rate are "absolutely normal."

He said the experience of having Mr. McCloy as a patient and seeing the outpouring of support from family as well as strangers "has been heartwarming."

Asked earlier in the day whether Mr. McCloy had listened to the Metallica CDs his wife, Anna, had bought him the day before, he said, "We have the boom box. We have the tapes. But I wouldn't know Metallica" to hear it. "There was music." He gave a playful smile when one reporter asked if he thought the music had a positive effect on the patient.

Gayle Manchin, wife of West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III, confirmed that it was Metallica but that it wasn't very loud because of the nearness of other patients.

The steadfast Anna McCloy, however, was not at the hospital Friday night. "We sent Anna home [to a nearby hotel]," said Dr. Shannon. "I think she developed the requisite confidence in our guardian angels" -- a reference to Mr. McCloy's nurses, "who treat him like surrogate mothers. Anna has spent most every minute with him that we have let her. She was confident, and tired enough" to concede a night away from her husband.

As for his own confidence, Dr. Shannon was careful not to expect, only to hope for, "significant neurological recovery in a few weeks."