"People were rushing out, yelling, 'There's 12 alive!' " Mr. Goff said.
"When they found the body and said the carbon monoxide levels were high, I doubted my faith," he said, "but now we've got 12 men walking off that hill."
Throughout the day, trained rescue teams equipped with oxygen canisters had rotated through the mine, meticulously repairing the damaged ventilation system and combing through the mazelike corridors for the men.
Emotions seesawed throughout the day with each new piece of information. In the morning, hopes had run high that the miners, most of them highly experienced workers in their 40's and 50's, had barricaded themselves in a corridor with breathable air to wait for a rescue party.
By late afternoon, mine company officials said that with only a few thousand feet of mine left to search, the chances of the miners being alive seemed remote. But late in the evening, officials said the fact that 12 miners had apparently not been killed by the force of the explosion renewed hopes that they were alive.
