BOARDER SUFFOCATED

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21183, 5 August 1940, Page 10

BOARDER SUFFOCATED

FOUND IN BED BY FIREMEN MUCH DAMAGE TO HOUSE (By Telegraph.—Special to Times) AUCKLAND, Monday A boarder in a house in Newmarket which caught fire on Saturday night, Mr Albert Bayly Smith, wi lower, aged 66, a clerk, was found de'i in his bed by firemen. Mr S .nth was alone in the house at the t'me, the occupiers, Mr and Mrs /. rederick Norton, a son and three other relatives who stayed there having gone out for the evening. An alarm was given by a passerby shortly before 10 o’clock. After they had broken down the front door the firemen found one room burned out, and the fire spreading across a passage to another room. The flames were quickly suppressed, but on investigation Mr Smith was found dead in an adjacent room, apparently having been overcome in his sleep by the heat and smoke. The house, an eight-roomed structure, was considerably damaged. LEAPED FROM WINDOWS FIRE TRAPS BOARDERS HEAVY PERSONAL LOSSES (By Telegraph.—Special to Times) AUCKLAND, Monday Six young men who were trapped by fire in the upper storey of a boardinghouse in Carlton Gore Road, Grafton, early yesterday morning, saved themselves by jumping from windows to a lawn 20ft. below. Another, Mr A. Henderson, climbed through a window on to a sunporch, from where he leaped on to the roof of a house next door. He suffered lacerations to his right leg and arm from a jagged piece of glass in the window, and w is taken to the Auckland Hospital, being discharged after treatment in the casualty ward. The house, a large building of 14 rooms, was occupied by Mrs Madeline Olive Bragg. In addition to her daughter, 10 people were staying there. Only Mrs Bragg and her daughter, who had a room near the front of the house, were able to escape through the door, the other occupants being forced to jump out of windows without being able to collect any of their belongings. Firemen quickly mastered the fire, although bedding continued to bum for some time. None of the contents of the house or the personal property of the occupants was covered by insurance.