ROOMS WRECKED

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21368, 12 March 1941, Page 9

ROOMS WRECKED

HOSPITAL EXPLOSION I WATER UNIT NEAR THEATRE STAFF COMPLETES OPERATION (Special to Times.) GISBORNE, Tuesday When a steam-operated water unit in the operating block of the Cook Hospital blew up with a shattering explosion today, wrecking almost every pane of glass in the theatre and adjoining rooms, members of the staff conducting an operation coolly continued their work and completed the operation. Glass littered the floor under their feet, and they were showered with splinters, but none was hurt. The explosion occurred in a room separated from the operatiing theatre by another room, and the force of the blast was such that it blow open the swing doors of the theatre, crashing them back against the walls, and breaking panes of glass three-eighths of an inch thick. Other windows in the block were tom out like paper, while the water unit shot through the ceiling and out into the open air through the tiled roof of the block. Escape of Nurse The medical superintendent, Dr. R. J. B. Hall, was conducting an operation in the theatre, the patient being a Royal Air Force candidate. One nurse who stood at the end of the theatre nearest to the windows had a narrow escape, for an overhead pane was drawn inward and fell within inches of her and shattered on the flood. She and others carried on calmly in spite of the disconcerting effects of the explosion and its aftermath, and the impression that the hospital was undergoing a bombardment. No member of the staff was aware for a few minutes of the cause of the explosion. The whole ceiling of the room in which the water unit was housed was lifted. The unit went rocketing through the ceiling and tiled roof with such impetus that it suffered practically no damage from the impact. Patients and staff all over the hospital heard the explosion and felt the concussion, but there was no sign of panic.