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Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott
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  The Ludington Daily News
  October 31, 1952
  
        5 Prospectors Die in Mine Explosion
        
        ALPENA, Mich., (AP) - Five men prospecting for uranium
      were killed last night when an underground explosion ripped
      through the 180-foot deep shaft of an abandoned gold mine
      at Herron, 10 miles west of here.
        State police identified the victims as John Wilczynski,
      of Chicago; Pat Chavalier, 32, of Herron; and three brothers,
      Zeke, 47, Henry, 37 and Bernard Donke, 44, all of Herron.
        
        6th Man Escapes
        
        A sixth man, John Pastuszke, of Chicago, almost miraculously
      escaped injury in the blast which occurred at 11:15 p.m.
        Police said the bodies of Chavalier and Zeke Donke were still
      entombed at the bottom of the water filled shaft.
        Searchers recovered the bodies of the other victims which
      had been hurled some 300 feet from the shaft entrance by the
      force of the blast.
        Pastuszke said Chavalier and Zeke Donke had gone down into
      the shaft to check on the removal of water pumps used to drain
      the abandoned mine.  He said he and the others were grouped
      around the shaft entrance when the explosion occurred.
      Pastuszke said a tool shed between him and the shaft opening
      probably saved his life.
        The force of the blast hurled heavy i-beams, used to cover
      the mine entrance, a distance of 300 feet.
        Cause of the blast was not immediately determined.
        
        Natural Gas Present.
        
        Searchers gave up efforts to recover the bodies of the
      two men in the mine shaft until experts could be called in
      to assist in draining water from the pit and in controlling
      the natural gas to prevent another explosion.
        The blast occurred in the abandoned shaft known locally
      as "the old gold mine."
        The mine figured in a gold mine stock swindle about 40
      or 50 years ago and had not been worked until Wilcznyski
      and the others began uranium prospecting operations 
      several weeks ago.
      
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