HOSPITAL DISASTER.

Hokitika Guardian, 14 August 1923, Page 3

HOSPITAL DISASTER.

LONDON,. June 29. A London hospital was yesterday tin scene ot an extraordinary mvsterv.

While engaged on her duties as dispenser nt the Metropolitan Ear. Nose, and 1 brunt Hospital.* F'itzroy-sqare. W . -Miss Harriet Storer, a beautiful, darkhaired woman, was binned to death. The door of the dispensary in which she was at work was. i mu rare to tier u.-ual practice, locked. Miss Storer. who had been lour tears a dispenser at the hospital, was a most competent worker. It is -aid that she was shortly to lie married. She went to the dispensary in the basement about 5 p.m. to attend to prescriptions for patients who lined up at a small window outside tne dispensary. Shortly afterward-, the doctors and nurses were .-tart led by a loud explosion and cries of "Eire.'' The patients at the dispensary window ran upstairs into the main building and told the nurses and doctors that they had seen the dispenser run about the room in (lames. Dr Frederick Suiter, of llarley-st.. who is o speciali-l lit Ihe hospital, hurried down-lairs. “We could hear the Irautie cries of Miss Storer inside the dispensary." Dr. Spicer told a reporter, “hut when I got down there, to my nstom-linicnt i found the door locked and I mold not gain entrance despite all my ellorts to hatter down the door. Meanwhile she was entombed and was screaming, hut we could do nothing. “I rail around to the window and mmiagod somehow to gain entrance, I lit when I got inside ail 1 lonnd was the charred remains of Mi-s Storer. Even her limits had been burned. “From v.liat .1 can make out. Mi-s Storer was cleaning a syringe and the same time had a kettle on an ol'i n gas-ring witli whit'd to make some tea. 1 call only euneliid" that the ether which she had b -on using soniooow tiilight, alight. •‘f cannot think low tin- door n tne dispensary became locked. that is i the mystery to us nil. "Whether Miss Storer locked the door to be free from interruption or not I cannot say." ".Miss Storer tomes of a wealthy family in Derbyshire. said the -a - tiirv of the liu.-pital. “'The wonder of it i- that the dispensarv and the lio-pital din not eaten tire. As it was. several ot our inpatients were startled Ironi their beds at the noise whit h was made by bursting jars and glass (lying against the dispensary walls. “Mis.- Storer was a great lavuiinte with Die staff and patients.”