Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1892-01-23
oRIPpLEs nUnrKp TO pKArH.

Il
Many Lives Lost I'm = Surgical Insti
understandable Scenes at the Fir,
| -strugglcs OF the Inmates 60 Saw,
/ covered.
| INDIANAPOLIS, Jan. 22.-The Surgica
institute burned last night at midnight
Nineteen helpless, crippled children, in
mates of the institution, lost their lives
and twenty other persons were injured
| some of them badly. Two hundred and
forty-six patients and thirty nurses sleep
ing in the two four-story buildings at tbs
corner of Illinois and Georgia streets, in
which the institute is located, were placed
in imminent danger of their lives.
The fire started at midnight In the Office
building, above which were the wards fol-
babes and mothers, and known as the A.
B. G. departments. Smoke was discovered
issuing from room adjoining the operat-
ing-room back of the Office. The fire Ia
asserted to have started from spontaneous
combustion of chemicals, and In fifteen
flames.
The attendants awakened all the pa.
TENTS. In the halls and supper rooms
pandemonium raigned. Shrieks for help
went up as the inmates realized their ter
rible situation. In a few minutes white
faces appeared at each window of the
large building. The police, fremen and
attendants all worked diligently, and
many patients were taken from the upper
floors by means of the ladders and carried
to places of safety by them. No attempt
was made to save anything bnt life The
patients, both male and female, who could
get about assisted in the work of rescue.
In the halls and on the stairwsys, before
the fire had communicated to the main
building, inmates wrapped in bed clothing
crawled and helped themselves along
from one floor to another. The
crowd turned in to help in the work
of rescue. Cots were rudely constructed
from mattresses, and policemen carried
the helpless persons across the street to
the new annex. At least 1875 persons were
taken out by the iremen and carried to
adjoining stores.
Seventy or eighty of the patients were
carried to Weddell's restaurant. One of
them said: 81 was sleeping in my bed on
the fourth floor. I awoke with a sense of
strangulstion. From less than foot
above my face and up to the ceiling was
dense mass of smoke. just rolled off my
bed. II was so hot I thought WAS going
to die. I called as loud as could for
help. Just then there was n crash of the
door and a big colored man fell over me.
He picked me up bodily, dashed through
the halls down stairwsys and brought me
here"
Ethel Platt, an eight year-yold daughter
of James NJ. Platt of Pinkneyville, III,
was found in her bed on the third floor
half strangled with smoke and helpless
from spinal trouble. Wrapped in blank
ct she was taken up in the arms of q fire.
man, carried down to the next floor,
through dense smoke past roaring flames,
to a window, and as the crowd gathered
below and extended their arms she was
thrown out. he leg was broken by the
fall
In a room on the "a, B, G" floor Mrs
E. D. Purdy was sleeping with her little
daughter, and had only time to spring
from her bed, throw a quilt over the Grip
Piled child, and, with nothing but her
night robe to protect her, attempted
to make an escape. She ran into the
halls, fell, recovered her feet, and then
STOPPING dragged her little girl about sew
enty-ive feet to the top of stairway.
Again she took her child, now unconsci-
GUS, in her arms, and had made her way
half down the steps leading to the third
floor when she lost her balance and fell
the little one falling upon the
mother and remaining uppsrmost until she
reached the landing about ten steps below.
Here the mother and child were found by
John Gavin and a commercial traveller and
rescued.
Mrs DR.. Button, the female physician of
the institute, was last known to be in room
81, caring for a sick boy. Up to / 80 a.
m. she had not been found.
Lazarus Stearu of Dubuque, la, who
had been an inmate of the institution about
five months, was left in room 10l. he
was helpless. The fire burned through the
partition at the foot of his bed and burn
ing boards fell on him. He lost conscious
ness. de was removed by the police and
fremen, but when taken to the restaurant
il was found that his fset were terribly
burned. His condition is critical.
At the restau rant of A. ]. Griffith, di-
rectly west of the institute, the scene was
terrible. More than fifty rescued inmates
were huddled in groups on the floor, from
old men down to babies.
Nine babies were taken from the upper
floor of the main building.
Three bodies were taken out of one
room of the ruins, Que man and one
woman, and another so badly burned as to
make the sex undistinguishAble.
During the fire two women jumped from
the windows. One of these was badly
injured, but another, who was caught by
a man standing in the crowd below, es-
capped serious injury. Two others threw
out their children which were caught and
saved by the firemen.
Nineteen dead bodies have been recov-
cred.
The Surgical institute was a yeritable