HOSPITAL DISASTER

Hokitika Guardian, 17 May 1929, Page 5

HOSPITAL DISASTER

FEARFUL SPECTACLES

THE GASSED AND' WOUNDED,

(United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright).

NEW YORK, May 15.

'' In the Cleveland Hospital explosion 'disaster, after the first blast had shattered the hospital, nurses and a few ’of the patients who Happened to be close along the exits poured screaming from the building. Of the girls who jumped from the third and second storey windows, some were so' badly gassed that they staggered only a few feet before collapsing. Pedestrians who ran up quickly, were also caught in the gas. 'By this time there was another ward full of men and women patients appearing at the upper windows and screaming for he}p. They were so badly off that most of them fell back into the flames and un© gas. A few minutes later, firemen got ladders up, and carried ,out bodies. By 1 o’clock there were a dozen persons sti.l standing on the roof, to which they had escaped through a skylight, and superhuman efforts were being made to reach them. Clouds of dense smoke blotted them out occasionally. Thousands of cheering spectators applauded eVery heroic, effort by the firemen.

The Cleveland morgues and other hospitals were in the meantime overflowing with the-dead, and dying.

By three o’clock, a check-up appeared of the death list, which estimated the dead at more than seventy.

The hospital was one of four storeys, being a brick and steel semi-fireproof building. By 3.30 o’clock the. fire was practically under control, and the last ■ man had been removed from the roof, the brave firemen using extension ladders outside, because the interior was still so smoke-laden that it was impenetrable. The injured and gas victims were dying rapidly before oxygen could be administered. HOSPITAL A CHARNEL HOUSE. si! - ; - ■■; : j_ ; ■ : ■ ' ■ ' HEROIC RESCUE WORK. ,i <_ i*- : j • ; • NEW'YORK, May 16. After the Cleveland Hospital explosion. Jthe.physicians, .le,d by (Director* Grille and-Assistant Director Lower,‘as well as every available doctor in the city, continued -work-'throughout the night in efforts to revive many of the pntierits who were still unconscious from the’ effect's of gas. The heroic conduct' of the medical profession was equalled by that of the police, who first arrived on the scene. One traffic patrolman near the hospital, upon hearing of the explosion, rushed into the building and attempted to carry out a woman, but he was overcome by the gas and he died. Police ■, reserves, who were quickly summoned', '' found that entry to the building was impossible. They then clambered on to the roof, opened a trap-door, and let themselves down by ropes. The stricken people were brought up in a similar way, and pulmotopwer used fo resuscitate them. ■ The extreme suddenness of the disaster made a charnel house of the hospital,’ even. before the rescuers could get to the ‘scene. To-night in the City Square, a huge hoarding is surrounded by Ihtousands of relatives, friends and strangers to the stricken persons. Painters, from time to time, paint the names of additional dead as they are telephoned from the various hospitals. DEATH ROLL 125. VARIOUS ENQUIRIES MAKING. (Received tlm day at 8.30- a.m.) NEW YORK, May 16. A message from Cleveland states with the death list from the hospital disaster is now 125, and increasing

hourly. Various inquiries have been instigated by the City Council, State and Federal authorities. There are persistent reports that a man was seen using a blow torch in the vicinity of the room where the X-ray films were stored, and this is lining thoroughly in-, vestigntod. hut in the meantime, the onlv definite fact regarding the possible cause of such extensive fatalities was revealed by the City Investigating Commission which discovered n faulty fire door in the clinics hrav room, where the catastrophe originated. Dr H L Rockwood (Health Comnu« .ioner and head of the Commission) declared that had the door worked it would have shut off the room from the remainder of the building and caused the deadly poison gas to he forced to the street through a ventilator SIX DOCTORS SUCCUMB. NEW YORK, May 16.

Cleveland reports state the victims who fought for the lives through the night succumbed one after another to tbe effects of the gas. To-day, six staff physicians died, including Doctor John Phillips, co-founder of the clinic, a native of’Welland, Ontario.