CLINIC DISASTER

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 142, 17 May 1929, Page 7

CLINIC DISASTER

OVER ONE HUNDRED DEATHS. LIST HOURLY INCRmSING. FAULTY FIRE (United Press Association—B-y Electric Telegraph—Copyright E (Australian Press Association). Received May 17, lo.3(lSto>.m. NEW YORK, Wy 16. A message from Cleveland states that the death list in connection^.with the hospital disaster is now is increasing hourly. There are persistent reports that a man was seen using a blow torch in the vicinity of the room where the X-ray films were stored. These reports are being thoroughly investigated, but in the meantime the only definite fact regarding the possible cause of such extensive fatalities lias been revealed by the City Investigating Commission, which discovered a faulty fire door in tile room where the catastrophe originated.

Dr. H. L. Rockwood, Health Commissioner, and head of the commission, declared that liad the door worked it would have shut off the room from the remainder of the building and caused the deadly poison gas to be forced to the street through the ventilator.

VICTIMS FIGHT FOR LIFE.

DEATH ENDS AGONY.

(Australian Press Association—United Service).

Received May 17, 11.5 a.m. ' NEW YORK, May 16. A message from Cleveland states that the victims who fought for their lives through the night succumbed one after another to the effects of the gas today. Six staff physicians died, including Dr. John Phillips, the co-founder of the clinic. He was a native of Welland, Ontario.

SUDDENNESS OF. DISASTER

' DOCTORS WORK ALL NIGHT 1 ,

(Australian Press Association.) NEW YORK, May 15. Physicians led by the Direc'ioy of the clinic, Dr. Crile, and tlie Assistant Director, Dr. Lower, as well as every available doctor in the city ; continued to work throughout tlie night in efforts to revive many of the patients who were still unconscious fiom the effects of the gas. The heroic conduct of the medical profession was equalled by that of the police who first arrived on the scene. A traffic patrolman near the hospital, upon hearing the explosion, rushed into the building and attempted to carry out a woman, but he was overcome by gas and died. Police reserves, who were quickly summoned, found entry to tlie building impossible. Then they clambered on to the roof, opened a trapdoor, and let themselves down by ropes. The stricken were brought up in a similar way and pul-motors used to resuscitate them. The extreme suddenness of the disaster made a charnel house of the hospital even before tlie rescuers could get to the scene. To-night in the City Square a huge hoarding is surrounded by thousands of relatives and friends of the stricken, and strangers. Painters from time to time paint the names of additional dead as they are telephoned from the various hospitals.

HEROIC i FIREMEN.

HOSPITALS' OVERFLOWING

(United. Service). VANCOUVER, May 15. In the hospital explosion, tlie first blast shattered the hospital. Instantly the doors opened and tlie nurses and a few patients who happened to be close alongside the exits poured screaming irom the building. Then fifteen girls, appealing at the second and third storey windows, leaped to the ground. Some of these were so badly gassed that they staggered only a few feet before collapsing. Pedestrians who ran up quickly were also caught in the gas wave. By this time another ward full of men' and women patients were appearing in tho upper windows, screaming for help. They were so badly off that most of them fell back into the flames and gas. A few moments later tho firemen got ladders up and carried out the bodies. By one o’clock a dozen were still standing on the roof, to which they had escaped through a skylight. Superhuman efforts were made to reach them, and clouds of dense smoke blotted them out occasionally. Thousands of cheering spectators applauded every heroic act by the firemen. The Cleveland morgues and other hospitals in the meantime are overflowing with dead and dying. The hospital is of four storeys, constructed in brick and Heel, and sornifireproof.