Patients Evacuated In Hospital Fire

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30191, 24 July 1963, Page 17

Patients Evacuated In Hospital Fire

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, July 23.

Eleven patients were evacuated in seven minutes when Are broke out at a private hospital in Epsom at midnight last night. The owner and matron of St. Swithin's. Banff avenue. Mrs Mary Allman-Marchant, today praised neighbours who rushed to her aid when alarms rang. *T will never forget it: there were half a dozen people there in no time,” she said.

Three patients walked, four were carried out asleep, the others were awake but had to be carried out, Mrs All-man-Marchant said. They were laid on their rubber mattresses on the grass in front of the hospital. The weather was cool, but calm and dry. Mrs Allman-Marchant said she noticed a glow and crackling coming from her quarters at the back and above the main patients’ wing. “I dropped the linen I was carrying and smashed the alarm. It sounded like a giant alarm clock." As she ran towards the main block she met the only

other member of the staff on the premises. Sister Pat McKinney. “We told those who could walk to leave the building. Already neighbours were carrying patients outside,” said Mrs Allman-Marchant. Machines had the fire under control within 20 minutes and confined the blaze to the back wing. Chief Fire Officer L. F. Wilson praised the evacuation. “It was a cool job well carried out by neighbours and the matron and sister,” he said.

Neighbours remained and helped to get the patients back inside after the fire was out.