DEATH IN FIRE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22289, 26 March 1947, Page 3

DEATH IN FIRE

CHRISTCHURCH WIDOW

SUFFOCATED BY SMOKE (P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, March 26. An inquest was held into the death of Annie McClintock, aged 65, widow, who died when the premises she was occupying were destroyed by fire on December 19, before Mr R. Ferner, S.M.. coroner. Mary Isobel McClintock, daughter of Mrs McClintock, said her mother had been bedridden for four years and could not move without help. On December. 19 she had closed the shop which she and her mother occupied at New Brighton and went into the kitchen behind the shop. Shortly after this a neighbour, Eric Trainer, came into the kitchen and said the shop was on fire. She went into her mother’s room and with the help of Trainertried to take her mother to safety.

Her mother complained that the movement was hurting her and offered no assistance to her rescuers, who were forced to leave the room because of the volume of smoke. Mrs. McClintock cried out that she did not want to be left behind.

Eric Trainer said, in evidence, that when he and Miss McClintock tried to move Mrs McClintock she had clung to the sides of her bed and. since she was a heavy woman it was impossible to move her before the smoke forced them out of the room. Nellie Louisa Champ and Mercy Dagma Bond, neighbours of Miss McClintock, said they both saw smoke pouring out of the north-west corner of the shop and tried to help in the rescue of Mrs McClintock, but were overpowered by the smoke. “Prompt efforts were made to rescue Mrs McClintock by ■ her neighbours," said the coroner, “but site was heavy and bed-ridden and it was not possible to move her. It seems that the cause of the fire is unknown, but. it had made such rapid progress that the premises were seriously involved.”

A verdict of asphyxia from suffocation by smoke when the premises were destroyed by fire was returned.