WELLINGTON FATAL FIRE

Taranaki Daily News, 19 December 1930, Page 11

WELLINGTON FATAL FIRE

WOMAN’S GRAPHIC ACCOUNT

FAILURE TO LEAVE UNEXPLAINED i , I LADDER TOO SHORT TO SAVE ONE. | ■ • • . _____ i By Telegraph.—Press Association. >•' ■ Wellington,. Last Night. 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, 5.M.,-to-day., • / . I • The coroner returned a verdict that Mrs. Watson ? s • death took place as a result of asphyxiation and scalding and 1 Gray, died in hospital from chest -injuries received while jumping from the top storey of the house.. Witnesses described how the Wpiuafn, after leaning half out: of a. window of .the burning building; fell back when a ladder , which hqd been run up prov.ed 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 retirefl. to bed at about 10.45 o’clock after entertaining a bridge party in her bedsitting room., Neither she nor any of 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; j

SUFFOCATING SMOKE.' I .

The'next Miss Needham knew was when she' woke half”suffocated with smoke. She- immediately ran upstairs to Gray and woke him and called iout to Mrs. Watson.' She had i 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. ;1.. Miss Needham ran downstairs and got a dish of wuter, She could not remember what happened 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 shouttki 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 tb- the. back ’yard, and tlujre “discovered MW 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 ra.tr' forward to intercept him but- he hit a coal box. and then the concrete. Just after Gray jumped, Mt's. Watson, .appeared’ at the 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 the scene just prior to this. ■ . Miss Needham wag of . the opinion that the fire,started in her wardrobe, which was. near’the fir,eplace. Elsie Mary Thompson- gave similar /evidence.•«.»’.-.*.r .! • Thomas Burton Clark, deputy-super- ' infendent of'the fire , brigade, said the binlding wag well alight when the brigade, arrived.' He was .told there'was a wohian' in the front room on the first . floor but -when he made a search as soon ag't.pOf-siblp he cohld find, no- trij.ee;; of her. Af> the fire was being subdued he ‘made a further search and found the -bodyof Mrs. Watjson beneath the window in/ihe bathroom./ .>'• ’* ? ■'