Two men digging for a water line Saturday afternoon struck a gas line and blew up a house in Fairborn. This was what was left of the duplex they were working on. Photo by Brandon Smith-Hebson.

MONDAY A.M. UPDATE: A 75-year-old man was found dead in the rubble on Sunday. It was my day off, so a colleague reported it. Since his story is the most complete version of events at the scene, his story has replaced mine online. Officials said five others injured will probably be OK.

This was the biggest breaking news I’ve ever reported. I was drafted by the Dayton Daily News for the job, because I could get there faster than their reporters could. I continually called in updates, e-mailed quotes, and sent photos from my phone, into the night.

My story was the lead on page A1 of today’s (Sunday) Dayton Daily, and an inside version was the Local centerpiece.

My first sight on the scene was this. I quickly snapped a picture in fear someone would move it from its place on a nearby sidewalk. Blood spatters stained the sidewalk for a full block in one direction from the explosion.

Allie Conley, a high school student at Emmanuel Christian Academy, qualified for the Ed Choice program, getting what is sometimes called a private school voucher. If HB 136 is signed into law, Ohio’s voucher system stands to grow significantly larger. Photo by Marshall Gorby, used courtesy of the Springfield News-Sun.

I was an education reporter this week, covering the bill that Republican governor John Kasich is hoping will change the education system in the state — that is, make it smaller. Possibly by leaps and bounds.

My story ferreted out a portion of the bill that allows for infinite expansion of the voucher system, albeit at a rate of growth of 25 percent per year. The only cap is when all state funding of local schools is gone.

Naturally, this would be a big blow to public schools. And I report their adamant opposition. But I would have liked to dive a little deeper and try to find out what would happen to the state’s public education system should the bill go into effect.

Despite a question about smoking added to the state’s death certificate form in 2007, it’s wildly unclear just how many deaths can be attributed to smoking — or any disease — because of error in determining cause of death. Photo by Bill Lackey, used courtesy of the Springfield News-Sun.

I was told to find out how people are dying in Clark County, and whether it’s any different here than in the rest of the state or country. In particular, Springfield was once thought of as a “smoking town.” An even bigger, better question is “are we doing things to cause our own deaths more than nature is killing us?”

Unfortunately, the only solid answer the current data can give us is that Springfield doesn’t smoke any more than the rest of the state does. How people die is a HUGE mystery — not just here, but all across the country.

Here’s my story on the error rate of cause-of-death reporting, a factor that affects a lot more than the families of the dead: health and science funding often hinges on the biggest “problem spots,” but if we don’t know where they are, we’re blindly throwing money at stuff.