RESCUE IN FIRE

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31234, 5 December 1966, Page 18

RESCUE IN FIRE

Mother-in-law Carried Out (N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, December 4. Fighting Ms way through a wall of flame, a man saved bis 96-year-old mother-in-law from a fire wMch gutted the back of a house in Albany road. Ponsonby, on Friday night The man, who had to make his way through the roaring sitting-room of his house with his mother-in-law in his arms, is George Manfred Hartnell, aged 54, a welder, married, with three children.

Mr Hartnell was taken to Auckland Hospital, where he was treated for neck burns and was later discharged. The fire was under control within 10 minutes. Mr Hartnell was wakened by the smoke and immediately roused his wife and 19-year-old son in the front of "the house. The back rooms were an inferno but he went down the hallway to rescue the only other occupant of the house, his ill mother-in-law, Mrs Rima Pamatatau. After scooping the sleeping woman out of bed, he found the hallway blocked by flames. He fled through the sittingroom and out the back door. “It was touch and go,” he said. “Another minute and I would not have been able to get her opt as her room had just begun to be enveloped.”