TRAPPED BY FIRE

Taranaki Daily News, 21 January 1935, Page 8

TRAPPED BY FIRE

DANCERS HURRY TO THE RESCUE. TOO LATE TO SAVE WOMAN. London, Dec. 3. Men and women were dancing ma ballroom at a Weymouth hotel. 'Die dance, organised by the United Services at Portland, was nearly over. The band was playing the last waltz. Suddenly there was a rush of hurrying feet. Men ran into the ballroom crying, ‘Fire! Out into the night the dancers hurried. They found the fire blazing m rooms over a garage two doors away where they had left their cars. At the window of a bedroom they saw the figure of a terror-stricken woman, Mrs. Bloxham, a major’s wife. One glimpse they had of her. Then she fell back into the flames. Officers who had been among the dancers scaled a 50ft. parapet to try to reach the woman. Flames spurted out and drove them back. Mr. Dan Guy, garage proprietor, leapt from a thirdstorey window and broke both his legs. A chef from the hotel, Mr. Harry Fenner, got a ladder and rescued Mrs. Guy and her daughter. Mr. Geoffrey Guy, a son, followed. Mr. Dan Guy, his son and daughter, all suffered burns. When firemen managed to get into the blazing building they found Mrs. Bloxham. She was dead. Mrs. Bloxham, a woman of 70, was on a visit from Cheltenham. Her husband is ill in a Weymouth nursing home, states the Evening Standard.