WELLINGTON BLAZE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 June 1939, Page 6

WELLINGTON BLAZE

APARTMENT HOUSE BADLY DAMAGED FOUR PEOPLE TAKEN TO HOSPITAL. DIFFICULT ESCAPE FROM UPPER FLOOR. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day. Four people were removed to hospital by the Free Ambulance and a fifth person was treated on the spot for injuries received in a spectacular blaze which badly damaged a big two-story wooden house in Thompson Street early this morning. The premises which were used as an apartment house, were well alight when the tire was discovered, and by the time everybody had been roused the escape of a number of the people on the top floor had been rendered difficult owing to a stairway being cut off. Some consequently risked jumping fifteen feet to a concrete path below. Those taken to hospital are:— Arthur Rudings, ■ storeman, severe burns on the right arm and face. A Cottermole, lacerated wounds to the right hand. Mrs A. Cottermole severe lacerated wound on the left arm. z W. L. Martin, a P. and T. cadet, punctured wound in the right arm. None of the wounds are serious. Mr A. O’Dea, commercial artist, was treated on the spot for a wound in the left foot. The fire was first noticed by Harry Serisen, sleeping in one of the upstairs rooms. He said he went to sleep about half past one. The next thing he knew was that it was very hot and smoke was coming into the room. “I opened the door of ah adjoining room,” he added, “and saw that half of it was on fire. I switched on the light and dashed out into the hall, and wakened as many people as I could. A little later, I found myself outside the house.” Rudings, who occupied the same room as Serisen, also wakened as many as possible, but by the time he went to go downstairs he found that the passageway was barred by flames. After being scorched, he turned, back and leapt through one of the windows. He struck a bank and'fell further, on to some steps. Although he was badly shaken and burnt, he scrambled to his feet and called O’Dea and Johnson, in a room on the ground floor. , Keith Robie, who occupied a room on the top floor, near the back of the house, also found he was unable to escape by the stairs. He scrambled through,a small window, caught hold of a drainpipe and from there went head over heels to the ground. The fire had a good hold before it was discovered at 2.15 a.m. and when the Brigade received the call the blaze was visible at the Central Fire Station, nearly a mile away. Three engines were despatched, with additions from Brooklyn and Constable Street. The flames were suppressed, but not before the top floor had been gutted and the rooms below had suffered from water. The owner is Mr E. J. Hill and the occupant is Miss Lucy Dawson, running the apartments.