The body of a coal miner missing since the weekend has been recovered in West Virginia, state officials announced Thursday. Gov. Patrick Morissey identified the miner as Steve Lipscomb, who was trapped deep inside the Rolling Thunder Mine in Nicholas County amid sudden flooding on Saturday, WVNews reports. Morissey said rescue teams located Lipscomb's body around 7:30am Thursday, shortly after receding water levels finally allowed safe entry into the mine complex. Lipscomb, a foreman, was last seen about three-quarters of a mile inside the mine when floodwaters surged, stranding him and prompting an intensive search effort.
Crews worked continuously in 12-hour shifts, pumping out water and drilling into the tunnels in hopes of reaching Lipscomb. Dive teams entered the mine several times, but officials said the volume of flooding and debris made much of the complex inaccessible until Thursday morning. "This morning's news is absolutely heartbreaking," the governor said. More than a dozen other members of the mining crew escaped Saturday after they hit an unknown pocket of water.
Morissey said the mine flooded after an old wall "was compromised," the AP reports. He said the abandoned mine next to the Rolling Thunder operation hadn't been used since the 1940s. In a similar incident at Hominy Falls in the same county in 1968, a coal mine was flooded by water from an old abandoned mine, cutting off 25 workers. The 15 nearest the surface were rescued within six days. In what became known as the "Miracle of Hominy Falls," six of the other 10, who had all been presumed dead, were rescued 10 days after the accident, per WV Public Broadcasting. Rescuers found that the other four drowned in the initial flooding.
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