A SECOND MAN DIES

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22554, 9 November 1938, Page 12

A SECOND MAN DIES

Fire in Auckland Boardinghouse VICTIMS IDENTIFIED (PBESS i.aSOCIJLTIO» MLEGSAH.) AUCKLAND, November 8. One of the men injured In the fire in a boardinghouse in Grey’s avenue last night died in hospital early this morning. Of the eight persons who were trapped in the fire the victims were:— DEAD Jack McDonald, aged about 56, died on the way to hospital. John Jennings Hilcy, aged 72, a single . man, died this morning from burns, suffocation, and shock. In Hospital Thomas McKenna, condition fair. A. Alcock, condition improving. The dead men were identified this morning by two fellow boarders. Two men upstairs besides the injured were J. Magee and L. H. Simpson. They made their way downstairs to the street uninjured. Mr Magee said to-day that he awoke to hear a movement in the room occupied by a Maori family below. “Then I thought I could hear some sort of sound, and when I was puzzling to define it, I smelt smoke. I leapt up, and went downstairs to give the alarm. I was forestalled by a neighbour. By that time it was impossible to return upstairs.” He said he warned Mr Simpson, who escaped along a flame-filled passage.

The fire was under control three minutes after the brigade arrived.

There were nine rooms in the house. The ground floor of five rooms is a Slackened ruin. Miss Katerine Schischka, the proprietress, was trying to restore some sort of order out of the chaos, but was unable to find anything of value. She was merely a tenant, and nothing belonging to her was insured. The building was owned by the executors of Mr James Harris. The building was insured for £250 in the South British office.