SWIFT TRAGEDY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22867, 23 October 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

SWIFT TRAGEDY

OLD LONDON MANSION GAS FROM FUMIGATOR EXPLOSION IN SEALED ROOMS Fumes of deadly cyanide of potassium escaping from the sealed-up portion of a mansion at Prideaux Place, King's Cross, London, brought swift tragedy upon the occupants, four of them being taken to the Royal Free Hospital, where one —a woman —died. I< our rescuers, three of them police officers, were also overcome by the fumes and detained in hospital, while 25 other people affected, including ambulance men and fire brigade officers, were able to leare after being given a whiff of oxygen and a mouth-wash. The dead woman, Mrs. Alice Jenkinson, aged 45, was reading in the basement of the house when the stream of fjoison gas came upon her. She and her lusband ran to the window, but col--1 a.sped. Mrs. Jenkinson never regained consciousness, but her husband left hospital after treatment. The scene of the mishap, which occurred late at night, is an old mansion divided into two separate establishments, one of which is unoccupied. The other is divided into apartments, and it was here that tiie people were overcome. Cries For Help The unoccupied portion was being fumigated. Suddenly, when all in the house was quiet, there was a slight explosion, and fumes began to filter through into the apartments. Mr. and Mrs. Jenkinson managed to cry for help before they collapsed. Miss Millicent Smith, a neighbour, heard their cries, tried to break the basement window behind which they lay, and then staggered across the street for aid. She collapsed on a neighbour's doorstep, and was later taken to hospital. Meanwhile Sergeant Smith, Police Constable Perry and Police Constable Freeland ran to the house in response to a telephone message. They were met by stifling fumes, which began to surge into the street. Heroically they struggled through, and managed to drag out Mr. and Mrs. Jenkinson before they (the police) collapsed. Prideaux Place was closed by cordons of police, while firemen and ambulance men, working in gas-m?~ks, brought out the unconscious victims on stretchers. It was possible to smell the gas an hour after the house had been opened up. For some time afterwards oxygen was being administered to the survivors. At the top of the house, playing patience, sat 57-year-old Ernest Dorman. He escaped the poison that cut down those below him. "I noticed a peculiar smell," he said afterwards. "I went to the window to get some fresh air, and then I heard feeble cries for help coming from downstairs. "1 ran down to the area, and saw Mrs. Jenkinson, who lived in the basement, lying on the ground, and two policemen trying to climb out of the basement window and shouting for help. At the corner of the road I saw a police van approaching with reinforcements of rescuers." "Like Gas Attack" Mr. Roy Barnes, who was having a cup of tea in a house near the affected one, told a graphic story of the happenings. "I heard the police run past the house, and I followed them," he explained. "When 1 arrived at the house they were kicking in the basement window. I followed them in, and we found a man and a woman lying on the floor. "The two policemen dragged them into the garden and laid them near the window and 1 helped them to give artificial respiration, which I learned in the Army. As we bent down over them we could stnell the gas but 1 for my part did not realise the danger until 1 felt quite dizzy. "It was very much like going over the top in a gas attack in the war."