BY GREGORY A. HALL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Michael Sanzere
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NEWPORT -- Working at a limestone plant is inherently risky. Michael Sanzere, a gambler by hobby, knew that but didn't dwell on it.
The 45-year-old Dayton, Ky., man's body was found late Tuesday evening after a two-day search at the Dravo Lime Co. in Carntown, about 45 miles from Cincinnati. Mr. Sanzere was in a building beneath a 60-foot-high bin, which fell Monday morning.
Ray Precht and his brother Greg, 43, came to the Sanzere home in Newport to hug the father of their friend and gambling buddy.
Ray, a fellow 1971 Newport Catholic High graduate and friend ever since, said he once told Mr. Sanzere that he couldn't work in a mine because of the danger.
Mr. Sanzere replied his job wasn't that risky, because it didn't require him to be in the mine. He would test rock samples outside of it.
"He always said, "I don't have to worry about that,' " Mr. Precht recalled Wednesday. " "I'm above ground.' "
On Wednesday, Mr. Sanzere's friends and family members cried, laughed and shook, recounting his life and the wait for his body to be pulled from the rubble of the collapsed limestone bin.
His father, 75-year-old Anthony Sanzere, said he believes the death of his son was destiny. When you're born, he said, you're marked with the way and time you will die.
"Maybe that's wrong, but that's the way I believe," he said. "You don't like to lose him, but the good Lord wanted him."
If his death as a chemist at a limestone mine was pre-ordained, family and friends had few clues what his life's work would be.
As a boy, Mr. Sanzere had a large rock collection, his father said.
When he was in college, he asked his great aunt, Dorothy Rodgers of Newport, about the rock formations she saw during a trip out west. "He always had a big interest in rocks and geology," she said. The Pendleton County Coroner's office is awaiting the results of an autopsy conducted Wednesday on the body at St. Luke Hospital East in Fort Thomas.
Meanwhile, federal investigators remained on the scene of Dravo Lime Co. on Wednesday trying to find out why the accident occured. The bin that collapsed was noticeably rusty and contained an estimated 600 tons of limestone.
Mr. Sanzere's father said he wants to know the answer for the same reason his son would have -- for the safety of the workers still there.
As parents, Mr. Sanzere said, he and his wife had been most concerned about the number of hours his son worked, not the danger of his job. He could be called in on overtime at all hours.
Mr. Sanzere credited the emergency workers and company employees with doing everything possible to care for them.
"Everybody we met down there that Mike worked with or Mike was associated with were A-1," he said. "Everybody down there seemed like they were in a family instead of a company.
"They did so much," he said. "They worked night and day down there trying to get Mike out. They're very special people."
A friend called the Sanzere house on Monday after hearing about the mine accident and asked whether Michael was OK. His mother then called the mine; shortly afterward, they headed to the mine.
Family members hoped for the miracle that would be needed for Mr. Sanzere to be found alive.
Around 8 p.m. Tuesday night, Mr. Sanzere was told that his son wasn't where he was first thought to be. At that point, hope for the miracle dimmed.
"Personally, myself, I knew he was gone, and I tried to prepare my wife," Mr. Sanzere said.
After 10 p.m., word came that his body had been found. Family members were asked whether they wanted to go down to the site and identify their son.
"We said no," Mr. Sanzere said, "because we want to remember him as he was."
Family and friends remembered Mike Sanzere as someone who would give away money if someone needed it.
"Mike was always a happy guy," Ray Precht said, even when they lost at bowling.
"We'd try to win, but we didn't really care," he said. "We were good sports and Mike would be the first to congratulate the winning team."
"We just had fun," said Greg Precht.
Last week, Mr. Sanzere was on a lucky streak -- bowling 648 for three games. He joked with his teammates that it was the first night he'd bowled well.
"I would have done anything for Mike, and he would have done anything for anybody else," Ray Precht said. "He was that way." In addition to being a bowler, Mr. Sanzere liked card games with friends, riverboat casinos and trips to Las Vegas.
His father said that a couple of times he encouraged his son to marry, but Mr. Sanzere was happy -- and marriage would cut into his freedom to hit the boats or go to Vegas three times a year if he wanted.
"When you're married, you can't do that," his father said.
In addition to Mr. Sanzere's father, surviving are his mother, Jeannine Sanzere of Newport; a brother, Anthony Sanzere Jr. of Geilenkirchen, Germany; three sisters, Barbara Sanzere of Newport, Beverly Miller of Burlington, and Laura Spengler of Warren, Mich.; and four nephews.
Visitation will be 5 to 9 p.m. Friday at Radel Funeral Home in Newport. Mass of Christian burial will be 10 a.m. Saturday at Corpus Christi Church in Newport, where he was a parishioner. Burial will be in St. Stephen Cemetery in Fort Thomas.
