“You go down,” called Walter to Driver Lawson below him on the ladder. “I’ll get her and slide for it. Be at the bottom to catch us.”
Lawson slid back through the flames, and Walter climbed into the[Pg 108] window. Mrs. Owen was lying unconscious on the floor with her dress ablaze. Walter beat out the flames and then wrapped his coat around her to protect her from the sparks and embers that were swirling through the window.
Laying the unconscious woman on the window-sill, Walter climbed out on the ladder. Then he reached over and took Mrs. Owen, placing her across his arms. Seeing that a slow descent through the flames bursting out of the windows on the floors below meant certain death, Walter wrapped his legs around the sides of the ladder and took hold of both sides with his hands, balancing Mrs. Owen across his arms.
“Catch us down there,” he shouted and started to slide down the ladder through the flames and smoke, as though it had been greased.
For a few seconds he was hidden from view; then he reappeared with his clothes ablaze but with his burden still safe across his arms. Firemen caught him as he reached the sidewalk, and took Mrs. Owen who was still unconscious.
It was all the police reserves could do to keep the crowd from breaking through the fire lines to congratulate Walter and carry him off on their shoulders. They cheered again and again as he was hurried into the Harlem Hospital ambulance. His hands and face were scorched, but after his burns had been dressed at the hospital he gamily returned to his quarters in the fire station.
Mrs. Owen was the only occupant of the house who did not succeed in reaching the fire escapes in the rear of the apartment and thus getting out safely.
The fire started in the basement, evidently from an overheated furnace, and shooting up through the air shafts, spread into the apartments on the third, fourth, and fifth floors. As[Pg 109] most of the tenants left the doors of their apartments open when they fled, the draught swept the fire through floor after floor. The interior of the whole five floors was destroyed. Three alarms were turned in and the fire was not under control until 10 o’clock.
Stories of Accidents. News stories of accidents are constructed on the same plan as those of fires, and the features are practically the same. The story of the accident in the subway (page 41) and the following one may be taken as typical reports of accidents.
In attempting to protect the lives of others against danger from a broken electric light wire, Patrolman Patrick Wilson, 751 Erie St., was electrocuted at 3:30 this morning on Depere Place between 75th and 76th streets. The body of the policeman was discovered an hour later by Oscar Wilkins, a milkman, as he was driving along Depere Place on his morning rounds. A small red burn across the back of his right hand and a live wire with a rope attached dangling from a tree a few feet away, showed how Wilson had lost his life.