Lois Epperly, mother of Clay Epperly, holds Clay’s daughter Serenity as she squeezes a teddy bear near the mine site Thursday.
KEYSTONE, W.Va. — “They just pronounced him dead.”
Those were the words of Lois Epperly Thursday afternoon after she was told by mining officials and the West Virginia State Police that the search for her son, Clay Epperly, 30, who has been missing inside of an abandoned McDowell County mine since Monday night, was over.
Rescue crews and officials determined the mine, which is 100 years old and was closed and sealed in 1987, was too unsafe to continue, she said.
“I’ll never give up,” she said after she left the site of the abandoned mine. “They told us they are going to seal it with him still in there and that we could have a service after it is sealed. But I’ll never give up hope…
