Scores were wedged in the doorways, pinned by the force of those behind them. There in the narrow aisle at the balcony entrances they were suffocated and fell—tons of human weight.
All succeeded in leaving their seats in the first balcony. Climbing over the seats and rushing up the slanting aisles to the level aisles above, they fought their way. Those at the bottom of the mass were burned but little. The top layer of bodies was burned till they never can be identified.
Darkness shrouded the theater with its hundreds of dead when the fire was under control that the building could be entered. The firemen were forced to work in smoky darkness when they started carrying the bodies from the balconies.
THE GALLERY HORROR.
James M. Strong, a Chicago board of trade clerk, the sole survivor of all the occupants of the gallery who tried to escape through the locked door, smashed with his fist a glass transom and climbed through it. Three members of his family, who followed him down the passageway, shared the fate of others. Their bodies since have been discovered, burned almost beyond recognition.
"If the door hadn't been locked hundreds of persons could have saved their lives," said Strong.
The passageway, along which Strong and many now dead ran to supposed safety, led toward the front of the theater, past the top entrance to the gallery. Strong had been unable to secure seats and was standing in the rear of the gallery with his mother, Mrs. B. K. Strong, his wife, and his niece, Vera, 16 years old, of Americus, Ga. When the fire started all ran toward the nearest exit.
"The exit was crowded," said Strong. "We ran on down a passage at the side of it, followed by many others. At the end, down a short flight of steps, was a door. It was locked. In desperation I threw myself against it. I couldn't budge it. Then, standing on the top step of the little stairway, I smashed the glass above with my fist and crawled through the transom.
"When I fell on the outside I heard the screams on the other side, and, scrambling to my feet, I tried again to open the door, but couldn't. The key was not there. I ran down a stairway to the floor below, where I found a carpenter. I asked him to give me something to break down the door, and he got me a short board. I ran back with this and began pounding, but the door was too heavy to be broken.
"I scarcely know what happened afterward. Smoke was pouring over the transom and I felt myself suffocating. Alone, or with the assistance of the carpenter, I at last found myself at the bottom of the stairway opening into the lobby of the theater. From there I pushed my way to the street. Until then I didn't know I was burned."