The Wilmington morning star., 1946-09-22
AIR EVACUATION
RESCUES VICTIMS
Continued From Page One)

ham, N. c., Army doctor at the
scene. The most critically injured
was the young Belgian stewardess,
who was flown out first. Both her
legs were broken and she had Sc
we're face cuts and burns. Doctors
said she would have had little
chance to live if she had not been
evacuated today.
The 10 other survivors watched
wistfuly as their fellow passeng-
.ers were lifted gently on %stretchers
into the helicopter. They faced
their third sstraight night in the
forest. Tents, food, blankets and
Bedding rolls dropped to them
made their plight a little easier.
All YER injured to some degree
when the huge DC-4 airliner tore
through the treetops and crashed
in flames against 4 hillside
Wednesday morning.
The injured brought here were
taken Immediately to the Sir Fred
eric Banting Memorial hospital on
the base. The Newfoundland gov
eminent had augmented the hos
pitals small staff of doctors and
nurses for the emergency.
Coast Guard officers planned to
resume the evacuation operation at
first light tomorrow.
1t was difficult to tell the condi.
ton of the survivors as they were
lifted from the plane here on
stretchers, only their pale faces
showing above the blankets bund-
led about them. Revil's face was
badly cut. The stewardess also had
bad face cuts, and an ugly blotch
on her right hand looked like a
bad burn received when the plane
crashed in flames.
Apparently Miss Roocki was the
most critically injured of the sur
vivors. A doctor at the crash scene
had radioed earlier that two still
were incritical condition.
The fact she was flown here
Immediately suggested emergency
measures were necessary to save
her life. Coast Guard officers in
charge of the rescue work had
persons to thePBY before it took
off. But it left the lake as soon as
the stewardess was put aboard.
The helicopter was one of the
two dismantled ones rushed here
from New York and Elizabeth City,
N. c., in Air Transport Command
C-54's. They were feverishly as
sembled in y hangar here, and the
first left for the crash scene at LAS
p. m. EDIT, several hours earlier
than had been hoped.
How many of the survivors, IL
OF whom were classed as stretcher
cases, could be removed before
darkness fell was not known. First
definite word about their condi-
ton came from DR.. Joseph Martin,
a doctor with the rescue party at
the crash scene, who reported that
only two were critical.
All were cheerful and in good
spirits, DR.. Martin said, in spite
of their ordeal of last night when
a cold, drilling rain beat down on
the woods where they lay huddled
in Army sleeping bags with very
little else for cover.
Today was warm and sunny, a
condition which both facilitated
rescue work and eased the discom-
fort OF the pitiful little band of
survivors.
Removing them from the crash
scene, where the bodies OF the rs
killed in the crash still lay, was a
delicate operation. The rescue
party at the scene, including New
foundland Woodsmen and Indian
guides, hacked a path through the
thick underground to a small pla-
teau on a hill about one-quarter Of
a mile from the Wreckage.
JAMJ HToWN. N. Y, Sept. 81
-,F--f~ Gen. Charles Justin
He:'ey Y. S. Army retired, COM