CNN Larry King Live - Transcript
CNN Larry King Live - Transcript
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
KING: Still with us is Tambra Flint and Tim Flint, the mother and stepfather respectively of young Randy McCloy who is in the hospital, as is of course his attending physician, Dr. Larry Roberts.
And, joining us now from Charleston is Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia. The Sago Mine is in her district. She was on the site last night. What went wrong? Who made the announcement? Have we tracked that down?
REP. SHELLEY CAPITO (R), WEST VIRGINIA: Well, I was in the church, as I had been pretty much over the last two days just trying to help as much as I could in terms of giving aid and comfort to so many of the families.
And, I was there and I wasn't actually in the sanctuary at the time and folks, I heard sort of an uproar in there and folks came rushing out, you know, we were in the food area and they're like "They're alive. They're alive." And, I was just overcome like everybody else with just joy.
And, as we -- we looked around. We kept looking at each other like with disbelief thinking is this really -- is this really true? And, at that point, the governor was in the sanctuary and then he quickly left right after that. I did not hear him say anything but, you know, we had nothing to dispel that this was not true. I was operating under the same information as everybody in that church.
And, as the evening wore on, we had a situation really where we had a family in that church. We knew that there was one miner that was deceased and they had not been notified officially and our concerns, and my concerns, became with that family because there was so much joy everywhere else.
And so, I tried -- I left then to try to get information for that family with the company and, as I left probably an hour after I'd been there, I got into the information sort of blackout that everybody else did. And it wasn't until I went back to the church when I knew the governor -- when I saw the governor go back in did I get the horrific news as well.
KING: So, the answer is we don't know how this started?
CAPITO: I don't know. I've heard reports today all day. I saw the mine president talk about an explanation and, you know, from where I was it sounds like a plausible explanation. It's just -- it was like a kick in the stomach and I just -- my heart goes out to every single person.
KING: You mean somebody heard it wrong and passed it along wrong? Is there going to be any investigation of this?
CAPITO: Most certainly there will be. I mean I think from the federal perspective we're going to investigate what happened with the explosion, why, and we're going to -- we're going to look at, you know, the violations and the inspections that have gone on and we're also going to look at the communications. I mean this was just an enormous tragedy on top of a tragedy.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
KING: Now, Congresswoman Capito, what do you make of that? He gets a call they're coming. Then they're not coming. This is -- there's a major goof here.
CAPITO: Well I think we can (INAUDIBLE), a major goof, as I said a tragedy upon a tragedy and I think I would agree that probably the lack of communication in that whether they knew exactly what had happened or -- they needed to come back to the church where we were all gathered and at least when they knew there was erroneous information at least give us that much information.
That I think was probably the greatest disservice to everybody in that -- in that church and everybody connected with it. Obviously, they were working under tremendous pressure to try to get the men out as quickly as possible, as safely as possible.
We know that. I don't think anybody questions that and I don't know. I was not at the mine site where the decisions were being made, so I don't know how this transpired for so long.
KING: Congresswoman Capito has to leave us but I want one more, as does Dr. Roberts, I want to ask one more question of Dr. Roberts. The Flints will remain for one more segment. Doctor, what can you say to Tambra and Tim right now about Randy? ROBERTS: We're doing everything we possibly can. He suffered a significant injury and we are -- we have a large team working, many consultants, many advisers, many diagnostic studies, constant vigil in the Intensive Care Unit monitoring him and managing him. We're doing everything we possibly can.
KING: Thank you, doctor. Thank you, Congresswoman. Tim and Tambra will remain. We'll be joined by others as we continue the story of this incredible tragedy. We'll be right back.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0601/04/lkl.01.html