Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1902-12-07
THE DANGERS OF DUTY.
BY Frank J. crigie Jr.
u. PERIIS OF FREMEN.
BY Frank ]. craiaie. Jr.
II. PERILS OF FIREMEN.

down with the wall Allen Dickerson.
now keeper Of lockwood Cemetery: was
sitting on the sill of one window, direct
ing hose stream. He was half buried
in the debris Of the fallen wall, ana sui
fcred painful injuries. The three others
we're Jack Conoway, Fred Low, and
James Maggie. OF these, the last Two are
still In the department.
The Lee factory. at Twcnty-fourth and
| Franklin streets. during the early SOS,
nearly caught the men OF Engine Com
! pany No. L. Three men were on the
fourth, floor. near the front windows. The
/ crowd in the streets below saw the wall
bulging out, and quivering as it bulged.
They yelled TO As men that the wall was
falling. The ,ircmen couldn't hear them.
Then some one began 10 jerk on the
| line Of hose. One of the tremen rushed
to the window and yelled: Leave that
hose alone down there"
| Back came the cry: The wall is fall
ing!''
Down came the men. some by the rungs
OF the ladder, others sliding down the
sides. They piled around the bottom Of
| the ladder for a second. then broke for
safety The last man was scarcely out
Of reach when the wall tottcred for an
instant and crashed bodily down to the
the street. And that was pretty close
shave.
At the Jefferson Hotel fire, Chief Fuller
ordered No. is men off the roof of the
Jefferson fats. adjoining the east side
of the hotel Just bare moment before
the hotel wall toppled over and crashed
through the house from roof to cellar.
". NJ Lucas and Lewis r. Rogers,
OF No. 8, were working hose stream
on the Cullingworth house, at the Grove
Avenue Baptist church fire. when part
Of the church wall fell out The men
made a hasty retreat, and missed the
shower of bricks by a margin that gave
the spectators a shock; for practically
! every one who saw the falling of the
wall thought that the men ;ere buried
| under it.
Five of No as men Wa: ] a moment
at the Grace-Street Ba}, church fire
| while some one went for 4 axe to chop
down the door into a roo !. While they
waited a wall fell through the very room
and filled it full of wreck and ruin.
The planning mill of Miller & Miller
burned one night and No. s went through
the archway under the office building,
which stood across a narrow alleyway
from the mill. They went into the open
space and shot hose stream at flaming
cornice. Then they jumped back and
Strengthened into line in the archway.
From the way they tell the story I
think the cornice, or something else light
and airy, was expected to drop What
did come was the wall, a solid brick
wall, that got to the ground before the
men knew it, and before they had all
reached their position under the arch.
The fall of that wall shook the ground
like an earthquake; but not man was
caught Lss1
Foreman Hirshberg and Hoseman
Haake We're caught by a falling wall at
c. five Toy,
and both men were painfully cut and
bruised
Tie Hagan-Dart fire. which involved the
ice house OF Mrs. King. on the afternoon
Of April. 9, 1901, hurt one man and hurt
him badly.
Horace w. Clarke of Truck No ?, was
working close to of the ice-house
walls. These were wooden walls the
studding boarded up inside and out,
with sawdUst packed between. The struc-
ture was rotten in places, and the walls
were heavy with the water-soaked saw.
dust. Without warning a big section of
this wall toppled over and buried Clarke
beneath it. The hoSemen of Engine No
turned n stream Oh the wreck to keep
...e fire from the man who lay under IL
Then they pulled him out. with an arm
and leg broken, bruised from head to
, foot and badly cut His helmet was
damned GOWN upon MS neau unll II
rested on his ears and the bridge OF his
nose. ~
A wall fell over a company at the fire
at Camerons factory February %. 1890;
but every man escaped. a similar in
cident occurred at the P. II. Mayo
Bro. fire several years ago. / have no
doubt that fifty more such cases can be
recalled by these men, whose lives are
one great sequence of such adventures.
Floors fall in nea:':y every big fire
Sometimes a wall goes first and leaves
the floor ioists sticking out into space
| for the fraction of a second before the
whole inside of the house goes down. At
other times the fire weakens the Orders
or the joists and the floors go down in
side the walls and leave shell of fire
with II the floors piled up in the cellar.