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   “He died in 1958, and his report remained hidden until released by his son, Frank, earlier this year.

   “Although the public was kept from the truth about the cave-in, miners who worked in the area knew what really went on. They refused even to go near the shaft of horror, which now has been abandoned and sealed off.

   “TONS OF valuable coal and the true facts of what killed those 15 men remains hundreds of feet below ground, probably never to be unearthed again.

   "I vowed I'd never set foot in another coal mine," the elder Barger told his son before his death. "I haven't, and I won't, either.”

   “His father wasn't the sort of man to be easily shaken, Frank Barger said. He gave up his lifelong occupation for fear of the unknown.

   “Barger first learned of the mishap when Bill Leigh, a mining company representative, and a sheriff's deputy spotted him and motioned him into the trailer used as the mine's main office, he told his son.

   "’Lying on the floor and covered by a blanket was the body of a miner they'd pulled from the cave-in,’ he said.

   SOMETHING IN their expressions told me all was not as it should be." Barger lifted the blanket and jumped back in fright.

   "Something like an animal had attacked him," he said. "Whatever is was, it still was in the mine."

   "I want to know what's down there," Leigh commanded. Other rescuers already were getting anxious, fearing the men trapped below would be lost if something wasn't done for them quickly.

   Barger agreed to go into the mine with Ted Walters, another inspector. Their fear reached panic proportions as they reached the 200-foot level.

   "I peered into the hole and saw that by removing