CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE.

NZ Truth, Issue 136, 25 January 1908, Page 4

CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE.

CHRISTCHURCH HOSPITAL FIRE. No Fire Appliances on Hand. What the Fire Brigade Might Have Done. Ahout one of the most painful and pathetic sights imaginable is to see a hospital full to the door with patients m flames and helpless to the last degree of helplessness. The unfortunate bed-ridden have to remain cool and await assistance. The spectacle at Christchurch on last Wednesday morning when the women and children's ward of the Christohurch hospital was turned into a blazing furnace was a most unhappy one. Smoke was ,seen coming through the ventilators, and investigation soon showed that the place was badly "'on fire. It is almost a quarter of a mile run to the secretary's office, and that official rang up to the Fire Brigade when he could manage to get connection, and it was some 'time before the fire-fighters got on the scene. This was mostly owing to the awful system (denounced ih '-'Truth" recently) of haying no horses AND NO PERMANENT BRIGADESMEN.. The horses were out m the watercarts and had to be unhitched and then galloped to the station, fastened to the engine, and taken to the river Avon alongside the hospital. Long leads of hose had then to be run and the stairs climbed. By this time the ceiling Where the outbreak started had fallen m and. tlie firemen had to cut holes m the ceiling lower down m order to insert the hose, the fire raging between the ceiling and the roof. There were 28 patients m the ward and 20 rhen m the accident ward bepeath. All expedition was used m getting these out ; a . number of the upstairs patients were lowered by the lift at the north end, but Then this became impracticable, the remainder • . HAD TO BE CARRIED DOWN the staircase on mattrasses. This caused n slight delay, -because as the patients were going down the firemen were going tip and had to push their way past them. However all v/ ere got out safely. ' The • operating theatre is m the same building, and Dr. Sanderson was operating on a man "who had perforce to be removed fiuir.k and lively. The .top wall of tlie building was gutted, but the brick walls remain sound. Ah inspection of the place hy "Truth's" representative, piloted by Superintendent # Smith, showed the necessity for a parting wall m the, -centre. This would have confined the r fire- to the place it started m. It is also apparent that another wide exit is required, and when tlie large new veranda was erected ; recently^ one should have heen placed there. It is 1 incredible m these days of general demand for exits everywhere that a new place like this isn't properly provided with them. IT IS CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE, in* fact; and those, responsible deserve the severest censure from the community. It is really most , providential that the outbreak occurred during the day. At night the male attendants would have been away or m bed and all would have been confusion, and the result a dire fatality, which can only be conceived with horror. Superintendent Smith remarked that the horses and men would certainly be ready at the station at night, but even allowing that, "Truth" believes that there would have been a perfect. holocaust m that ward. The only theory advanced as to the origan ofthe fire was that a match built into a. bird's nest m a ventilator had caught alight. These ventilators are full -of birds' nests, and it is intended to place a light mauze round them m future. The State Office held a policy of £5000 on the »how, and the damage done is estimated at about £2000. There WERE NO FIRE APPLIANCES of any description m the burned ward, and had there even been a few hand grenades for an emergency, the fire could : have been got under as soon as it was discovered.