MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- Prominent Minneapolis-St. Paul grocer Jim Kowalski was killed when he fell into a float plane's spinning propeller in Canada, authorities said Friday.
Police said the accident occurred Thursday on Dee Dee Lake in northern Ontario when Kowalski, 67, lost his balance while standing on the small plane's float as it was maneuvering to shore, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. Kowalski was on a fishing trip with a friend, Paul Bruggeman, 50, of Stillwater, Minn., who owns the Cessna A185F Skywagon amphibian plane, the newspaper said.
Kowalski, of North Oaks, Minn., built Kowalski's Markets from a single grocery in St. Paul into a small upscale chain that thrived despite the competitive pressures exerted by national supermarket chains.
