MILLARD FYFFE
MEN BLOWN THIRTY FEET
Station At Keaton Is Fatal Scene
Two men are dead and another seriously burned, the result of an
explosion occurring early Tuesday afternoon at the compressor
station of the Ashland Oil and Refining Company at Keaton. The
dead men are Ora McKenzie, prominent man of that section, and
Millard Fyffe of Morgan County. John Pelphrey of Morgan County
is being treated at the Paintsville Hospital for severe burns
about the face and body.
According to reports from members of the family and employees
at the plant, the three men were repairing a leak in a gas pipe
near the station. When the explosion occurred they were blown
thirty or forty feet. McKenzie and Fyffe were killed
instantly, their bodies being badly mangled. Pelphrey who was
afire ran to a nearby creek and extinguished the flames.
Marvin Hill, superintendent of the station, switched off the
gas in the pipeline and brought out the bodies of the two dead
men.
Mr. McKenzie had been chief mechanic for the company some
twenty years, spending most of that time at the Keaton station.
He was fifty years of age, and a member of the Masonic Lodge
616. The funeral arrangements to be made by the Preston Funeral
Home are incomplete pending the arrival of the family.
Surviving Mr. McKenzie are his widow, the former Belva Boggs,
the following children, Walter, Mrs. Jewell Salyers, Ruben,
Mrs. Harry Burchett, Marshall, Mrs. Farrell Ferguson, Ora Jr.,
Audia Mae, James, Tommie and Betty Jean, and a sister, Mrs.
Della McKenzie.
Paintsville Herald
Thursday
December 23, 1943
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