MANY THRILLS IN HOTEL BLAZE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17862, 2 June 1926, Page 6

MANY THRILLS IN HOTEL BLAZE.

WOMEN CLING TO FLAGSTAFF; ONE LEAPS TO DEATH. LONDON, April IS. Thrilling rescue scenes marked the destruction by fire of Corporation Hotel, Grimsby, in the early hours of yesterday, when a young woman, holding by one hand to a flagstaff on the roof, lowered her sister to a fireman who, on a ladder that was too short, was endeavouring to save them. Mrs Maria Drayton, aged fifty-five, landlady of the hotel, was killed. Her daughter Rose May, aged twenty-two. heroine of the rescue work, and Doris Davy, aged eighteen, a maid, were injured. Just before three in the morning a constable saw a glow in the windows of a neighbouring hotel, and found this to be a reflection of a fire in the Corporation Hotel, a three-storey building at the corner of Freeman and Nelson Streets. FIRE ESCAPE FAILS. Herbert Drayton, son of the licensee, roused by the constable, tried to alarm the other inmates, while the officer himself telephoned for the fire brigade. But the staircase was now ablaze, and the women made their way to the roof of a bay window, where they clung to a flagstaff, with flames shooting around them. A fire escape soon arrived, but it fouled some wires in being raised, and another shorter ladder had to be used. Fireman Douglas, who ran to the top, was unable to reach the women, but Rose Drayton, hanging to the flagstaff with one hand, lowered her sister Ena into the fireman's arms with the other, and she was safely passed down the ladder. HEROINE’S LEAP. Rose then tried to jump to the ladder, but her weight almost swept the fireman from his hold. lie partly caught her, and broke her fall, and a fireman and civilian standing below also tried to catch her, and she struck her head on the pavement and sustained concussion and shock. Mrs Drayton and the maid apparently tried to escape from the back of the premises, and Herbert Drayton, unable to enter by the stairway, endeavoured to climb a spout near one of the back bedroom windows to Kelp them. But his mother, driven to a window by the fierce flames, jumped about twenty feet and, striking her head upon some barrels in the yard, fractured her skull. GIRL’S SLIDE DOWN SPOUT. The maid, Doris Davy, tried to climb down the spout, and descended some distance before losing her hold. She fell and broke an ankle. George Drayton, a younger son, bad in the meantime forced his way through smoke and flame to a storeroom, and procured a rope with the object of lowering the women from the window. But by that time the women had separated, and he was driven to the top floor, whence he lowered himself by the rope, which burnt through just as he reached the ground. The building, exposed on all sides, was soon a raging furnace. It was completely gutted, the damage amounting to several thousands of pounds. " I held on to the flag-pole,” explained Miss Rose Drayton to a “ Daily Chronicle ” representative, last evening, “ and lowered Ena into the fireman’s arms, and she was passed down the ladder. “ I had nothing to hold on to to help me to reach the fireman, and I don’t quite know what happend. The flame and smoke from the windows were terrible, and I don’t know whether I was overcome and fell or whether I jumped for the fireman’s arms.