The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1908-01-06
ALL PATIENTS SAVED
Carried to Safety by the
Brave Nurses, Who
Stay by Post
WORKMEN CREMATED
Killed by Flames Before
They Can Leave
Rooms

Michael Franco, his wife and John
Pom, employees of the French hospital
at Point Lobos and Fifth avenues, were
burned to death in their beds last
night by blaze which, starting on the
ground floor of an out building of the
hospital used as laundry and cleo
trical plant, threatened for a time to
spread to the entire structure of the
hospital. The nurses were forced to
remove the patients of two wards
from their beds in order to save them
from the blistering heat of the flames.
On account of the lights of the big
institution being extinguished by the
flames In the electrical plant the nurses
were compelled to depend solely upon
building as they went about the hos
pital removing the patients from the
contagious and senile wards to other
parts of the institution. Wild panic
reigned among the sick. who thought
themselves deserted.
1t was not until after the flames had
been extinguished by the force of fire.
men which three alarms summoned
that the three deaths were discovered.
The two men had been sleeping in
opposite rooms on the second floor of
the destroyed building at the time of
the fire and had apparently been
smothered by the smoke before the
flames reached them, for they lay
scorched and blaekened in their beds
when the fremen found them Pons
wife left the hospital but a few days
ago. The man was about 60 years old.
NURSES TO THE RESCUE
the engineer of the 1aundry and cleo
trio plant. George Ward. who promptly
turned in the alarm for the engines,
ran to the hospital building and noti-
fed DR.. AfcNulty, who was in charge
OF the fire. On running to the rear OF
the hospital the doctor saw that the
wards where the contagious cases and
the old people were housed were i'm
periled and ran to them. Nurses
Wheeler, Dance and Miller had already
seen the fire and had hurried to their
charges in the wards.
Although the nurses and the doctor
used every means to prevent the news
Of the fire reaching the ears of the fee
bic and i'll patients in~the cots, the glare
from the burning building, which was
but 50 feet away from the windows,
told its own. story, and when the cleo
and the entire hospital building was
thrown into darkness the patients gave
way TO frantic panic. many of them
attempting to throw themselves out of
bed in their efforts to escape from the
fate they feared. The nurses and DR..
McNuIty quieted them as much az pos
sible. caring for them as fast as pos
sible. placing them on stretchers and
carrying them to other parts of the big
building.
STARTS IN LAUNDRY
The laundry building in which the
fre started shortly after IL o'clock this
morning was two story brick struc-
ture IN which the electrical plant and
the laundry plant of the hospital was
located. The fire is believed to have
started through defective nue,
though It is possible that faulty In
sulation on one of the wires bearing
a heavy current may have been re-
sponsible for the fire.
Those patients who were removed
by the nurses were Y. Locatelli. J. b.
Lafon and ]. P. Meilletti. from the con-
tagious ward; Mrs. Freund and Mrs.
Gabriel. from the senile woman,s
ward. and Turot. Barthe and Arrissau, u,
from the mems department of the senile
ward
The wards in which these patients
were sleeping at the time OF the fire
are harly more than so feet from the
corner of the laundry where the flames
were first discovered. and the patients
were among the first to see the fare
Of the fire. Those of them who were
able to move from their beds attempted
to rise and were with difficulty held
in their cots until stretchers could be
brought on which they could be car
ried from positions of peril and placed
in safe part of the hospital.
PANIC OF PATIENTS
The fight which the firemen had on
their hands was stubborn one. The
flames were fed by the mass of fimsy
material which was in the main building
the bed linen and clothing of the pa
tisnts caused acrid smoke that made