Site of mining tragedy once home to Maine man

AUGUSTA – An East Winthrop man is no stranger to the West Virginia coal mine where a dozen men died after being trapped by an explosion.

John Fabbricatore’s engineer father designed the machinery that carries coal from the entrance of the Sago Mine, and the younger Fabbricatore traveled the tunnels of the mine as a child.

Fabbricatore, 39, attended school just a narrow, winding road from the mine. He still knows people who work there – and two of the miners who died.

He went to bed early Wednesday morning believing, like millions of others, that the miners had miraculously survived.

“I guess I went to bed 10 minutes too early,” Fabbricatore said. Learning of the deaths, he added, “was like a punch in the gut.”

To watch the drama surrounding Monday’s explosion unfold on national television and view the suffering of people he remembers was a disorienting experience for Fabbricatore.

“I’m seeing the place where I grew up,” he said. “I’m looking at hills and rocks I know.”

Fabbricatore and his family moved to Buckhannon, W.Va., in 1976, when his father took a job with the mine. His father, John Fabbricatore Sr., died in 2004, but his mother, Zola Fabbricatore, still lives five miles from the mine.

The sun shone in Buckhannon on Wednesday and it was nearly 60 degrees, but Zola Fabbricatore said a quiet, mournful gloom hung over the town.

“This is a small town. Everybody does know everybody,” she said. “There will be a lot of grief for a long time. A long time.”

While he never considered working in the mine, John Fabbricatore understands why men would ignore the dust and obvious danger to take the jobs.

“It’s unskilled labor,” he said, “but those guys make a ton of money.”

After college, Fabbricatore left for graduate school and came to Maine to work as an athletic trainer.

He found similarities between his adopted state and the one he left, with both combining rural poverty and natural beauty.

West Virginia remains in his heart, he said, and it hurts to see tragedy strike his hometown and the coal mine his father helped build.