Compiled by Wayne Blanchard; last edit 12-12-2024 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/

— 7 Ada Evening News, OK. “Dynamite Blast Takes Lives of Seven Workers.” 6-5-1934, p. 1.

— 7 Sweet, George Elliott. The History of Geophysical Prospecting (Vol. 1-2). 1978, p. 171.

Narrative Information

June 5: “Norman, June 5. – (AP) – The cause of a terrific dynamite blast that snuffed out the lives of seven members of a seismographic oil exploration crew probably will never be determined, investigators said today. “I don’t think we’ll ever know,” declared Hugh Russell, Sinclair explorations chief for Oklahoma, for whom the crew was working under contract.

“Wendel Crawford, a member of the party who was making instrument observations from a truck 50 feet from the scene of explosion, also said he had no idea what caused the blast, which occurred while the seven were grouped around a “shooting” truck, ready to set off a charge of dynamite in a 60-foot hole.

“Earlier, some officials had advanced the theory that a collision between the dynamite truck and a company water truck at the scene might have set off the explosive. Others had conjectured that static electricity might have caused the blast.

“As relatives sped toward Norman to assure themselves of the identification of their dead, undertakers and their assistants continued piecing together the shattered bodies of the members of the Petty Geophysics Engineering company crew who met horrible death on a rural roadside eight miles southeast of here late yesterday. The victims, identified from company rolls, were:

Vernon H. Weddel, 26, Chandler, single;

Preston Barnes, 20, Guthrie, married;

Lloyd D. Flood, 26, Norman, married;

Don McDonald, 22, San Antonio, Texas, single;

David McClellan, 37, Santa Anna, Texas, married;

Herman Volgt, 29, Perry, single; and

Joe Fannin, 29, May, Texas, single.

“Dynamite is one of the requisites for carrying on the geophysical explorations for oil in which the men were engaged. Charges of the explosive are detonated over the area to be surveyed, and delicate instruments record the sound wave echoes of the blasts as they bounce back from rock structures far underground. By timing the interval between explosion and echo, depths to the underground structures may be ascertained, and an accurate knowledge obtained of the subsurface topography….

“Ambulance drivers and other persons who reached the scene searched for more than two hours, collecting portions of the shattered bodies on bed sheets and in sacks from an area one-quarter mile square. L. W. Lamar of Norman, upon whose land the explorations were being made, was one of the first persons to arrive after the blast. “It was a mass of human wreckage,” he said.

“Members of the party who, like Crawford, were far enough from the explosion to escape injury were O. S. Petty, foreman, Bill Halbert, and Hugh Russell, the latter the Sinclair explorations chief for Oklahoma.

“Two nearby farm homes were damaged by the force of the shock, although none of the occupants was injured. Telephone lines were tossed into a tangle.” (Ada Evening News, OK. “Dynamite Blast Takes Lives of Seven Workers.” 6-5-1934, p. 1.)

Sources

Ada Evening News, OK. “Dynamite Blast Takes Lives of Seven Workers.” 6-5-1934, p. 1. At: http://newspaperarchive.com/fullpagepdfviewer?img=48764630&sterm=dynamite+explosion

Sweet, George Elliott. The History of Geophysical Prospecting (Vol. 1-2). Science Press, 3^rd. edition, 1978

1934 — June 4, dynamite explodes, Petty Geophysics Engineering crew near Norman OK–7