FIRE IN HOTEL

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 78, 29 September 1938, Page 22

FIRE IN HOTEL

BOY'S FATAL LEAP,

OTHER LIVES THREATENED

A SWITCH GIRL'S CALM

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, September 20.

Panic-stricken when a fire occurred at the Wentworth Hotel, one of the city's fashionable hotels, William Redmond, 12, leaped from a fifth-floor window, and was lulled. He fell 40 feet to tlie ballroom roof; and was found only after a long search. The fire broke out on the filth floor jat 10.45 last night, and 60 guests escaped amid scenes of great excitement An elderly woman on the fifth floor, Mrs. Byers, was rescued in her nightdress by Fourth Officer Barber in a heroic manner. She was badly burnt about the feet [It has since been reported that Mrs. Byers succumbed to her injuries.! Mrs. Redmond missed her son in the vestibule, crowded with excited guests. "Where is my baby?" she cried. "Cannot somebody help me?" Firemen tried to calm her while a search was made, and they had to restrain her from rushing up the stairs. "He's jumped out the window," she cried, "I know he's jumped out the window!"

In response to the mother's pleadings, Mr. H. S. Macey, o% New Zealand, went up the lift to the fifth floor. "Immediately I opened the lift door," he said, "I was met by a wall of flame. It was an inferno. The wires of the lift were beginning to burn, so I was forced down."

The boy jumped from his room be^ fore the Fire Brigades arrived. A number of people standing outside heard him cry, 'TH have to jump for it." They shouted, "Don't jump," and for some time he stayed on the sill. Finally he did jump. • Shortly afterwards a number of wbmen guests appeared at the windows close to that from which the boy jumped, and for.some moments a repetition of the boy's tragedy appeared certain. Two women climbed on window sills, but did not jump. They were rescued by firemen from the inside. STAFF MEMBERS HEROIC. At one stage the Deputy Chief Officer (Mr. Beare)- was told that a woman was about to jump. Immediately he rushed the extension ladders to vantage points. He ascended a ladder at the front of the building «with District Officer White and a St John Ambulanpe officer named Coagrove. They were walking on the roof when they found the boy Redmond,, lying unconscious, and brought him down the ladder to the street He was taken to the Sydney Hospital and died soon after arrivaL The reason why the boy was not found for so long was that he had fallen on the roof of the ballroom, between two buildings. Even when he was found, half an hour after the fire broke out, there was some difficulty in reaching him. Jack Gadiner, Douglas Davey, and T. King, all employees of the hotel, did heroic work tn rescuing people from their rooms. Once Gadiner was asked by Mr. A. B. Duff, a New Zealand visitor, to go to the third floor and find his friend, Mr. J. D. Smith j also of New Zealand, iin room 306. Gadiner rushed upstairjs, smashed through the door while the smoke and, flames were all around bhim, awakened Smith, and topk him downstairs safely. A heroine of the blaze was Beryl I Crohon, switch girl of the hotel. She attended the switchboard as coolly throughout the fire as if nothing had been happening, kept all connections open, and paged whatever people were required in the confusion. The outbreak was discovered under a stairway on the fifth floor by one of the page boys, Herbert Cook, when he went to the third floor to turn out some lights.. He rushed downstairs and gave the alarm.

The fire almost completely' burned out the fifth floor and the fourth floor was severejy damaged. Other floors suffered damage from, water.