LIVES LOST IN FIRE

Hawera Star, Volume L, 19 December 1930, Page 4

LIVES LOST IN FIRE

INVESTIGATION OF TRAGEDY

EVIDENCE OF BOARDERS

(By Telegraph —Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Dec. IS

Graphic accounts of the fatal fire which occurred at Oriental Bay on December 4 were given by the principal witnesses at the inquest into the deaths of Mrs. Ellen Watson and Walter Gray before the coroner, Mr. J. S. Barton, S.M.. to-day. The coroner returned a verdict that Mrs. Watson’s death took place as a result of asphyxiation and scalding, and Gray died in hospital from chest injuries received while jumping from the top store;- of the house. Witnesses described how the woman, after leaning half out of the burning building, fell back ivhen a ladder which had been run up proved too short, and how the man, disregarding the shouts of the people below, jumped. No reason why they could not leave the house by the staircase, as the others had, was shown. Henrietta Needham, millinery buyer, said she resided on the premises owned and occupied by Mrs. Watson. She retired to bed at 10.45 o’clock after entertaining a bridge party in her bedsitting room. Neither she nor any ot her visitors was smoking during the evening. Witness had a coal and wood fire in her grate. It was practically out when she retired. She went to sleep as soon as she went to bed. The next Miss Needham knew was when she awoke half suffocated with smoke. She immediately ran upstairs to Gray and woke him and called out to Mrs. Watson. She had some difficulty in waking Gray, but when she left his room he was awake. She did not try. Mrs. Watson’s door —it was always ajar—but she thought calling out “Fire!” would wake her. Miss Needham rail downstairs and got a dish of water. She could not remember what happeiied then, but the whole place seemed to burst into flames. As far as she could remember there was no fire upstairs when she arrived there first. As the fire broke out in earnest she shouted to all in the house to warn them of the fire. She thought she heard Mrs. Watson walk along the top passage and thought she was making for the back stairs. Everything was then enveloped in dense smoke. Miss Needham had to make her way to the back yard and there discovered Miss Thompson, but there was no sign of Mrs. Watson. They both tried to go up the back stairs, but smoke prevented them. They saw Gray in the act of jumping and called out to him not to. He was at the bathroom window. He jumped, however, and they ran forward to intercept him, but he hit a coal box and then the concrete. Just after Gray jumped, Mrs. Watson appeared at £Jie bathroom window in night attire. She stood at the window and gasped, apparently for help. They tried to reach her with a ladder, but it would not reach the window. She then disappeared. The brigade arrived on idle scene just :prior "to this. Miss Needham 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-super-intendent of the fire brigade, said the building was well alight when the brigade arrived. He was told there was a woman in the front room on the first floor, but when he made a search as soon as possible he could find no trace of her. As the fire was being subdued he made a further search and found the body of Mrs. Watson beneath the window in the bathroom.