Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-22
Hospital Staff Acts With
Efficiency in Caring
for Injured.
WOMAN is IDENTIFIED
AS COAT is SHOWN CHILD
Salvation Army Worker, Going to
Emergency to Offer Aid, Finds
Wife There.

Whitehead doctors, hands filled
with blood stained surgical instruments,
hurrying by Immaculate nurses, their
faces pale and drawn, soothing with
skilled hands the injured and comfort
ing the dying as best they could. Tears
in the eyes of a Catholic priest as he
moved from bedside to bedside, admin
istering the last rites of his church.
A little child being carried to an oper-
ating room, from which all thought she
would never emerge alive. Screams of
pain from behind closed doors. Silent
men and women forcing themselves to
the bedsides of the mortally injured,
fearful lest they recognize in one a
wife or a mother.
These were some of the impressions
indelibly stamped into the conscious
ness of the onlooker at Emergency Hos
pital yesterday afternoon as the blast
victims were brought in.
Staff Moves With Efficiency.
Through it all the hospital staff
moved with splendid efficiency. The
pain of the more seriously injured was
eased promptly, and they were sent to
the operating rooms. Those with lesser
hurts were treated, their wounds bound
up, and then sent home. Those who
could not live were placed in a quiet
room to one side.
AS the immensely of the disaster be-
came apparent, private doctors were
called in and every available nurse sum-
moned to duty. So promptly were the
blast victims cared for that doctors were
able to treat others injured as soon as
they reached the hospital. Among these
was hunter shot in the leg and an old
man whose hand had been crushed at
his work.
The difficulty of identifying the blast
victims was heightened by the fact that
most of them had lost their purses and
all articles of identification at the
scene of the explosion.
For nearly two hours Mrs. Annie
CocBrell lay unidentified. Through
some error it was believed that Miss
Kitty Cullinane, another victim, was
Mrs. Cockrell.
At last a doctor hit upon the idea OF
showing the woman's coat to other VIC
tins in the hope that some one would
recognize 1t. None on the first floor had
ever seen 1t before. The coat was taken
old Margaret Cockrell, herself painfully
injured. The child looked at the torn
and bloody garment.
That" she said, as my mothers
coat"
In one corner stood a middle-aged
man, dazed beyond power of speech
He was gazing down at a crumpled and
blood-stained Salvation Army lassie's
hat, which he kept twisting in his
hands.
He was G. S. Decker, transient serv-
ice worker for the Salvation Army.
Decker had come to the hospital as
soon as he heard of the disaster, hop
ing to be of some service.
Recognizes Hat.
The first thing he saw on entering
was the hat. lying on pile of blankets.
He recognized it as belonging to his
wife. She was unconscious when he
found her.
Knowing that his three-year-old son,
Charles, had been with his mother,
Decker began search for the boy. He
could not be found at Emergency.
Finally the father learned that his son
had been taken to Sibley Hospital and
was thought to be suffering from frac-
tured legs and internal injuries.
One badly injured woman was
brought to the hospital with only one
mark of identification on her-a we'd
ding ring engraved with the initials
wv. A. D." Hours later her husband,
Charles Darlington, heard a description
of the woman broadcast over the radio
and recognized 1t as fitting his wife.