ACROBAT FIREMEN.

Marlborough Express, Volume LIII, Issue 274, 21 November 1919, Page 6

ACROBAT FIREMEN.

AMAZING RESCUES

NEW YORK, Sept. 4. f Extraordinary feats of strength ' were performed by New York firemen ! in rescuing 16 families from a blazing . tenement in, the lower part of the | city yesterday. I The fire broke out in the base- \ ment, and quickly cut off all the ; occupants of the building from the J stairs and fire-escapes. When a j woman appeared at a seventh-floor | window it was found impossible to put up a ladder on account of the I flames bursting through the windows

below. Three firemen ascended to the seventh floor of the next building, and one climbed out of the window and hurig head downwards, his I comrades holding his feet. He j. stretched himself across the 6 feet iof intervening space, seized the | woman, weighing 14 stone, and I dragged her out of the window by | her hands. The two men hauling I on to his feet then ha»uled the pair i into safety. Another fireman, whose abdominal muscles must be those of a Hercules, also made a spectacular rescue. A | woman was seen climbing out of a fourth-floor window with her clothes smouldering. She prepared to jump. There was no time to get a ladder, so a fireman ran up one laid against a window above the one out of which the woman was climbing. Arriving at her level he climbed round'to the underside of the ladder, wedged his feet in the rungs, and leaned back- | wards till he was able to seize the

| woman under the arms. Then, with i a. terrific heave, h© lifted her out of ) the window and raised himself to a I vertical position again, placing his j charge safely on thel ladder.