The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-05-16
DEATH LIST RISES TO125
IN HOSPITAL EXPLOSION;
PROBE DISASTER CAUSE
Silence of Tomb Marks
Scene After Blast of
Doom.
GIVES LIFE FOR OTHERS
PatroIman Carries rs Out
of Building; Then Dies
of Fumes.

Bp pIHitcd Press
CLEVELAND, May 16.-A
tragedy in silence beneath a
coppery cloud
Joseph Stanley, division SUI
perintendent of the Cleveland
Railway Company, one OF the
first to view the tragedy at the
Cleveland Clinic, thus de-
scribed the scene Of death
"A peculiar cloud or fog hung
ever the buildings he said. II
was a strange, sickly copperish hue.
The building was on fire.
People, patients and attendants
we're crowded at the windows and
doors struggling. They said nothing,
made no cries.
THE silence, and that awful
struggle of frantic people. 1t was
the silence that was the horrible
feature. Il seemed that a deadly
blight had enveloped the Clinic,
strangling all within it.
Not until I scented the fumes,
did 1 realize that those terror strick-
en- people, leaping from windows
and staggering into the street, were
being gassed, and were unable to
even cry out for help"
Policeman Is Hero
Patrolman Ernest Staab traded
his life so that a score of others
might live when flames and gas
scattered death through the cor
ridorS and rooms of the hospital.
His name was inscribed high to-
day among the heroes of that dis
aSter.
TWenty-one lives he saved, some
said. Twenty-one persons, it is be-
lieved, he carried to safety.
Staab was one of the first to run
into the blazing structure.
He emerged carrying man near
death.
A pulmotor was used on the man
and he is expected to recover.
Staab went back again and again.
He drove a police car into the
rear yard Of hospital, helped carry
in those rescued, and then COL
lapsed. He died several hours later.
Nurse Dies Aiding Patient
All authorities agreed today that
the blame for the disaster lay in
the X-ray storage room in the
basement Of the our-story brick
structure and that the deadly fumes
swirled from ignited X-ray film.
Twelve bodies, scared and yellowed
by the gas. were found in the X-Ray
room, mute evidence of the fumes
deadliness. Twelve other bodies,
equally discolored, we're taken from
the roof.
Between those points we're many
sprawled bodies of dead and injured,
surround by cracked walls, broken
pipes, shattered windows and over
turned tables y 'ea
A nurse was found lying dead
across a wheel chair bearing a
patient she had tried vainly to
wheel to safety
Some patients we're trapped and
killed in bed.
Others ran naked or partly
dressed, only to fall half way TO
exits.
VentiIatOr Carries Gas
Patients heard a muf1ed roar
from the X-Ray basement room.
All fire doors Immediately closed.
Poison gas. generated from the
explosion, was forced through the
ventilator shaft by the heat.
Thin yellow wisps were seen
straying onto the second floor,
climbing upward through court
into the third and fourth floors and
emerging from the blowout sky
light
Those on the first floor ran out
to safety or remained to warn per-
sons on the floors above.
Telephone operators stayed at
their posts to give warnings.
Confusion indescribable followed.
Fire raced up a rear stairway and
spread.
Fifteen minutes after the first ex-
plosion, a second came, driving res
cuers back.
Forty-fve minutes later, third
occurred, tearing out pipes, crunlbl-
ing the walls and breaking all win
dows in the clinic and adjoining
structures. Little of the building
interior was left intact.
Persons Outside Felled
Person standing outside we're
felled by the force of the first blast.
One passerby was reported to have
received a broken arm.
A policeman hurried up, smelled
the fumes many yards away, and
dashed to an alarm box.
Soon ambulances, fire apparatus
and commandeered automobiles
formed a steady stream to the scene
of tragedy.
Ladders we're strung TO windows
Of the three upper floors. Police
men and firemen with gas masks
carried out dead and injured,
wrapped them in blankets and laid
them in rows on the lawns.
They spread life nets to catch
tsass SxAs sass leapinS ts Sa1Asss