Indianapolis, IN St Vincents Hospital Fire, Apr 1904

FIRE IN A HOSPITAL

ONE WOMAN LEAPS TO HER DEATH FROM FOURTH FLOOR.

Fire in Indianapolis Hospital Causes a Panic in Which One Life Is Lost and Several Are Injured.

White the city fire department of Indianapolis, Ind., reinforced by companies from the suburbs was being taxed to its utmost fighting the Occidental hotel fire early Sunday morning, an alarm was sent in from St. Vincent's hospital. When the first fire company arrived on life had been lost and several people were seriously injured in the panic that followed.

For a time it seemed that the flames which started in a pile of rags under the east stairway would find their way to the upper floors resulting in a frightful holocaust.

At every window on the third and fourth floors were crowded the panic stricken men and women screaming for help to those on the street below. The panic that raged on the third and fourth floors continued until long after the fire had been extinguished. Patients who had just undergone surgical operations rushed from their beds to the windows and attempted to throw themselves to the ground.

HARRIET LEABY (may not be an “L”) an old employee of the hospital leaped from a window on the fourth floor and when picked up was dead.

In the rear men and women were making ropes of bed clothing, by which they escaped to the ground below. KATE BEACH less fortunate than the rest lost her hold and fell from the third floor and is now in a critical condition from internal injuries sustained.

An unusual number of surgical operations were performed in the hospital on Saturday. Many of the patients carried from their beds by the rescuers were in a critical condition and the physicians in charge fear that many fatalities may result. The patients were carried to the male ward, which is on the first floor, and was not seriously affected by the panic which raged on the upper floors.

Improvised cots and mattreses [sic] were brought into use and a general call for medical assistance sent throughout the city. Within a short time about a hundred physicians arrived and the patients were cared for.

HARRY NICHOLS who underwent an operation for appendicitis a few hours before the outbreak of the fire, jumped from his bed and ran down four flights of stairs into the street. His condition is critical.
JAMES DAWSON, an emaciated patient worked heroically among the panic stricken men and women on the third floor. One after another he pulled away from the windows those who were preparing to jump to the street below and piloted them through the smoke to places of safety on the first floor.

After saving twenty-seven nurses and patients from possible injury in this manner, DAWSON lost consciousness and was carried into the male ward where medical attention was given him. For a time it was thought that he could not undergo the terrible strain to which he had been subjected.

American Eagle Murray Utah 1904-04-23
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!