ORIENTAL BAY FIRE

Evening Star, Issue 20671, 19 December 1930, Page 12

ORIENTAL BAY FIRE

INQUEST ON VICTIMS GRAPHIC ACCOUNT BY WITNESS [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, December 18. Graphic accounts of the fatal file which occurred at Oriental Bay on December 4 were given by tho principal witnesses at the inquest into the deaths of Mrs Ellen Watson and \Valter Gray before the coroner (Mr J, S. Barton, S.M.). Henrietta Needham, a millinery buyer, said she resided on premises which were owned and occupied by Mrs Watson. She retired to bed at about 10.45 o’clock after entertaining a bridge party iu her bed-sitting room. Neither she nor the visitors had been smoking during the evening. Witness had a coal and wood fire in her grate, but it was practically out when she retired. She went to sleep as soon as she went to bed. Tho next she knew was when she woke up half suffocated with smoke, She immediately ran upstairs to Gray, and woko him. She called out to Mrs Watson. She had some difficulty in waking Gray, but when she left his room ho was awake. She did not try Mrs Watson’s door. It was always ajar, but she thought calling out “ firo ” would wake her. Then she ran downstairs and got a dish of water. She could not remember what happened then, but the whole place seemed to burst into flames, feo far as could remember there was no fire upstairs when she arrived there first. When the fire broke out in earnest she shouted to all in the house to warn them. Then she thought she heard Mrs Watson walk along tho top of the passage, and thought she was making for the hack stairs. Everything was then enveloped in a dense slnoke. Witness had to make her way to tho backyard, and thcro she discovered Miss Thompson, but there was no sign of Mrs Watson. ■ They both tried to go up tho back stairs, but tho smoko prevented them. They then saw Gray in the act of jumping, and called out to him not to. He was at tho bathroom window. However, he jumped out, and they ran forward to intercept him to break his fall, but he struck a coal box and then tho concrete. Just after Gray jumped Mrs Watson appeared at tho'bathroom window in her night attire. They tried to reach her with a ladder, but it would not reach tho window. She then disappeared. Tho brigade arrived on the scene just after this. AVitness was of the opinion that the fire started in her wardrobe, which was near the fireplace Elsie Mary Thompson gave similar evidence.

Thomas Burton Clark, deputy superintendent of tho Firo Brigade, stated that the building was well alight when tho brigade arrived Ho was told there was a. woman in a front room on tho first floor, but when ho made a search as soon as possible ho could find no trace of her. As the firo was being subdued ho made a further search, and found the body of Mrs AA’atson beneath tho window. Tho coroner returned a verdict that Mrs Ellen AVatson’s death took place as tho result of asphyxiation and scalding, and that Gray died in hospital from chest injuries received while jumping from tho top story of tho house.