The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-05-17
Rescue Workers, and All
Others Escaping, Under
Doom Cloud.
NO TRACE OF MANY
Gas Effects May Take Toll
of Score More
Lives.
BY CLAIRE NJ. BURCKY
United Press staff Correspondent

threat of death hung like a Damo-
cles sword over a score of persons
today as funeral plans we're made
for the 1913, whose lives were Snuffed
by poison gas and fire in the Cleve-
land Clinic disaster.
Patients, doctors, nurses, all those
still alive who we're in the Clinic
/ Wednesday when three explosions
starting in the X-ray room sent yell
lowish nitrogen dioxide fumes swirl
ing through the building, we're
marked on the danger list.
They, with firemen, policemen
and volunteers who carried victims
from the blazing structure. we're or
dered to report for medical treat
/ ment to drive gas poison from their
lungs and blood corpuscles.
Many Unaccounted For
With eighty patients OF the
| Clinic unaccounted for. and forty
five more in hospital here, it was
feared that many more may be add
ed to the death toll.
! The eighty unaccOunted for pa
tients are persons who were regis
tered at the Clinic Wednesday when
/ the explosions occurred. What hap
pened to them is unknown to OFF,
cials here.
Funeral services for the victims
of Cleveland's greatest and most
sorroW1ul tragedy since the Collin
wood school fire Of 1908. which took
the lives Of 167 small children, will,
for the most part, be private.
Mayor John D. Marshall today
proclaimed Saturday a period of
mourning and asked that all public
and other business be curtailed as
mark OF respect to all who died IN
the disaster.
The vast destruction of human life
in an institution erected to preserve
life was believed probably due to
two steamfitterS blunders, each or
dinarily eXcusable.
One of the steamfltters, a young
man named Buffery BoggS, was
held in technical custody after he
told his story, between nervous puffS
of many cigarets, to Coroner A. j.
Pearse, police and county officials.
Leaves Hot Pipe Unguarded
He said he had been called to re-
pair a leaking steam pipe in the
basement X-ray film room
Wednesday morning.
Removing the fireproof covering,
he Rad found the pipe too hot to
touch. He vent back to his shop,
leaving the pipe to cool off.
Ninety minutes later he returned,
to find smoke in the room and
steam dripping from the pipes.
He seized a fire extinguisher and
played it against the ceiling, where
the smoke and Kissing steam
seemed centered. Almost immed1-
ately the first explosion knocked
him TO the floor.
Thereupon, he craWled from the
room and was seeking safety when
the second explosion flung him
through window.
His error, if such it might be
called, lay in leaving the steam pipe
unguarded.
P. F, Ferrie and NJ. F. Gross. city
fire wardens. after studying Boggs'
statement and that of Riley A. Null
| linneaux, chief engineer of the
Clinic, said they believed the heat
spreading from the unprotected
pipe and escaping steam had
caused spontaneous combustion
among rolls Of highly inflammable
X-ray film stored in the basement
room.
Error of Years Ago
Nitrogen gas given off from the
finn combined with the oxygen in
the air to form nitrogen dioxide gas
sure death for those who breathed
it deeply.
But this gas never would faVe
escaped from the flmroom to the
floors above except for the error of
the second steamf1tter, man as yet
unidentified.
Years ago this man put a steam
pipe, separate from the one Boggs
worked on. in the wrong place. 1t
protruded from the ceiling and pre-
vented the automatic closing Of
fire door in the f1lmroom.
Bodies of Mr.. and Mrs. ". "
Bushy. 1923 East Thirty-fifth street,
victims of the Cleveland Clinic dis
aster, have been identified positively
and will be. brought to indianapolis
at this evening.
Upon arrival here, the bodies
we're to be taken to the Edward
E Tyner undertaking establishment.
326 West Thirtieth street. Funeral
arrangements have been set tenta-
lively for Sunday afternoon at the
North Park Christian church,