Family of trapped Eastern KY worker hopes ‘that God would spare him,’ and he’s found alive

The family of a worker trapped under the rubble of a collapsed coal preparation plant in Martin County is holding out hope he’s still alive after more than 36 hours of rescuers’ efforts to find him.

Roger Bevins, a family member of one of the trapped workers, confirmed rescuers are still looking for his relative, who county officials identified later Thursday as Alvin Nees, 57. Officials said Thursday they hope he is still alive, but they’ve not been able to locate him since the building collapsed Tuesday evening. Workers are entering a new phase of the search in hopes of finding him.

Bevins said he has kept in contact with other family members of Nees and has gotten frequent updates on the search and rescue mission. He said the family is hoping and praying rescuers find the man alive, but it’s been harder to keep that hope as time elapses.

“He’s just such a good guy and we just hope that God would spare him,” Bevins said of Nees, who is from Belfry. “ ... He’s a humbling guy. He’s really good. Anybody that needs any help, he would help them.”

Nees and the other worker at the plant, who has been confirmed dead by Kentucky officials, were removing mining equipment from the building when it collapsed, according to Bevins. The two workers were the only people at the site when the incident happened, Bevins said. The other worker was later identified as Billy “Bo” Ray Daniels, who was in his late 50s.

Daniels’ body has not yet been removed from the rubble, according to Martin County Judge-Executive Lon Lafferty. Lafferty also said he believed the two men were working for Skeens Contracting, a company from Pikeville that had been working on-site.

“You would think there would be some type of safety measure involved or something, but that wasn’t the case,” Bevins said.

The search started after the building collapse was reported around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to Kentucky Emergency Management. The facility is near Middlefork Wolf Creek Road. The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet said the facility had been closed for years and reclamation was being done when the collapse occurred.

Bevins shared condolences for Daniels’ family and said he hopes Nees can make it out of the rubble alive.

“We’re just holding on to anything we can to hope that he can come out of this,” he said.

Community support offered at a local church

As rescuers keep searching for Nees, Buck Branch United Baptist Church has become an area for community members to gather and provide support to each other and to the first responders working at the scene.

The church is about 2 miles from the scene of the collapse. Lloyd Parsley, the church’s assistant pastor, told the Herald-Leader that they opened up the church and allowed it to serve as a place to get a meal and come together because “we know people’s in need.”

Parsley was a former coal miner, he said. He worked for 20 years before an incident caused him to suffer a broken vertebrae in his neck in 2010. He said nearly everyone in the Martin County community has worked in coal mining or is close with someone who did.

“Everybody that I’ve talked to, we just want to help and help comfort them,” Parsley said.

Community members brought food to the church so that other residents and first responders could eat, and the Martin County Fiscal Court asked people who want to donate items to continue taking them to Buck Branch church.

Reporter Bill Estep contributed to this story.