SEACLIFF TRAGEDY

Waikato Times, Volume 131, Issue 21907, 10 December 1942, Page 2

SEACLIFF TRAGEDY

I FLAMES FANNED BY WIND CAUSE REMAINS A MYSTERY DUNEDIN, Wednesday The death-roll in the fire tragedy at the Seacliff Mental Hospital, when the wing for female patients was destroyed, has reached 37. The ward in which the fire occurred housed patients of the more difficult type and was a wooden building of two storeys. It was about 85 feet long and 35 feet wide and was attached on the northern side to the main brick building. The annexe was very old and when the fire was discovered it had a good hold and quickly became a raging inferno. A strong south-west wind, almost of gale force, was blowing and this fanned the flames. The glow could be seen by people of Palmerston, 18 miles away. The* fire made a clean sweep of the old building and the patients had little if any chance of escape. In two of the rooms the windows were either open or could be opened, enabling the lives of two of the inmates to be saved. The other windows were closed. The victims of , the tragedy, who were of various ages, were very badly burned. Dr. M. Brown, medical superintendent of the hospital, said that an attendant saw flames burst from the building at about 10 a’clock, although some 10 minutes before a staff typist had passed the building and had seen no sign of fire. He sounded the alarms and a bell was then rung to notify those attendants who live outside the hospital that an emergency had occurred. Absence of Panic “The institution’s own fire brigade came into action in a commendably short time,” said Dr. Brown. “The nurses and attendants at once commenced to evacuate the patients from the female wards on the northern end. The nurses went about their work with steady coolness and this had a psychological effect on the patients, who went quietly to their new premises. There was, moreover, no panic in any of the other wards.” In the meantime the brigade, which was aided by a good pressure of water from the hospital’s own reservoir service, was carrying on a hopeless fight against the flames. It was quickly realised that it would have to concentrate on a large wooden one-storey ward standing some distance away on the northern side and also on preventing the fire from coming back to the main brick building on the southern side to which the blazing ward was attached. The fire had actually commenced to work back, but the brigade quickly concentrated on the flames. Although the wooden walls of the ward on the northern side were badly scorched the fire did not obtain a hold. Police Visit Scene The cause of the fire is a mystery. There were no fireplaces in the ward and no electric radiators, the building being steam-heated. The ward was electrically lighted. There were a kitchen and dining room in the building as well as single rooms and a dormitory. In which spot the fire started cannot be determined. One theory is that since there has been an earth movement in the Seacliff district for many years there may have been a crossing of the wires, in the electric-lighting installation. However, there is a periodical examination of the electriclighting systems. Superintendent O’Hara, of the Dunedin police, and members of the detective force visited the scene of the fire this morning. In the afternoon an inquest on the victims was formally opened by Mr H. W. Bundle, S.M., as coroner. The Seacliff mental hospital, which • is one of the oldest in the Dominion, I is situated about 24 miles north of Dunedin on a high site above cliffs between the main railway and the sea. The buildings are old-fashioned and of the barrack type. The number of patients in the two institutions has been about 1100 in recent years. In 1938 a wooden dining room attached to one of the wards at Seacliff was burned down, but the hospital fire brigade prevented the flames from spreading to other buildings.