The evening world. Newspaper, July 6, 1922, Page 2

War said, The density and quality of the fumes created in the tube were appalling President Prank Hedley of Interborat George McAneny of the Transit Commission, with staffs « only waited for definite had been no loss of lif before starting ident hap pened and how its repetition could be prevented U Fist Fights in Dark at Every Door Of 10-Car Train as Women Rush Screaming Against Closed Exits on the 1 and President sistant assurances that there rigid inve learn how the ac Guards Refuse to Let Pacvengers Out—Policeman Takes Command to Quiet Panic and Rescue Fainting. Passengers in the third car from the front of the train noticed an odor of burning cloth and rubber as the train was slowing down te enter the 59th Street station. Flames broke into the car when it was about 100 feet from the station platform: There was a rush to the other end of the car and a fight when the end door became clogged with screaming women trying to get back through the train Policeman Fred Norman of the Oak Street Station was in the car. He was off duty and not in uniform. Norman swung his shield from his coat lapel, and immediately took command to quiet the panic. His sharp commands stopped the rush and he tore a hand fire extinguisher from the side of the car and began playing a spray of the chemical on the spot where the smoke was rising The men in the car, at his command, went down the aisle trying to keep the more frightened persons in their seats. A voice from the platform between the cars shouted “Look out for the electric current; shut it off somebody A man jumped at the electric switchbox in the corner of the car and pawed wildly at its levers Every light in the train snapped out. At the same time light along the subway posts and in the station went out. With the terror of darkness any control Policeman Norman had obtained over the frightened passengers was gone. howls came from scared throats and every door in rushed. The guard. stood with their backs to the doors, refusing to open them because i..¢ train was not in a station. The next express station uptown was at 86th Street and the next downtown station was at 42d Street—but the guards clung rigidly to the rules. There were fisticuffs and pulling and hauling fights in vestibule between the ten cars of the train. The volume of smoke coming from the burning insulation under the first car increased swiftly. It became more choking and tating every moment. iia Women began sinking to their feet and falling back against the] gre seats, catching frantically at the persons next to them. Now and then a match was lighted, only to be slapped out by some one sen- ai sible enough to know that a fire in a woman's or child's fluffy dress |The might start something much worse than suffocation in di ores It was Policeman Norman who first was successful in forci: 4 open one of the doors in the rear of the car where the fire started every Screams and the train was Lie rep ry sou irri- -ness. erful breaking glass part of side Guards told the through the and children from the Things ut. MeG jorter who from the emerge theast ¢ nue and Pifty-tirst lights went out gun to fill with smoke, which carried se and also of some odor of fire e w There crash that windows or THE EVENING WORLD, THURSDAY, JULY 6, WOMEN STRUGGLE THROUGH HALF A MILE OF SMOKE IN SUBWAY Hedley Finds Cause of Fire Was Short Circuit in Panel : Box on mn Fourth Car of Train This Box - Lined With Asbestos and Has Metal Door, With Nothing to Burn but Insulation tunnel bad,’ wan to an Evening > met hir: as he e ey exit Lexingtor reet, the weren't 80 wrner of burning insulatic xtinguisher, stifling The of breaking frantic passenger breakin and platform train to the At once he leaped out to the side of the track, careless of the |down on the tracks. peril of the third rail. With sharp commands he directed the men and children and some men who could be found by the car and the seats. One after another the guards through the rest of the train rea- lized that to keep the doors closed meant the certain asphyxiation gloping the "Some did w lot in in the vestibule to hand down to him the limp forms of women and]and children to the ji I judge was along the of that wbout u re it “When we was a tracks to the the men were ve helping the eme rend of thi the re nder 5 walle of four Hist St got to the passengers to gency sald World merged at the n Ave- “until the curs be- on and sort of pow- atmo- was considerable of a panic. glass indi- s were ng the doors. pass rear and get ry cool women exit e train blocks 1 ex- exit we found by smoke of the passengers locked in the darkness, and slid back]}two men who had stationed them- ves at the bottom of the winding, the doors. Many of the passengers, partly overcome and nearly|narrow stairway and were fighting out of their minds with fright, crawled to the doors on their hands|back men Wi) were trying to. get out in front ef women and children and knees and toppled to the stone ballasted track level There was a terrific Jam at the foot Part of the dramatic story of the battle to save lives is the in-Jof the stairway. Pretty soon another i f Norman’s b fahig’ ee egeeee selene vay [Oxit was one and, with two stai cident of Norman's bumping into an emergency telephone instrument] wiiys working, the tunnel was ¢ in the darkness. He took it down to find he was connected with Inter-}but_ many women had to be carried borough headquarters which at once put him through to Police Head-]")4,5/Wissier, of No. 875 Fast 1470» quarters. Street, curried a woman who weighed 7 bout 200 pounds all the way fro The Lexington Avenue express tracks are depressed sufficiently | tye viain te the Bact Ld ba below the local tracks and the station level so there is room for the}and up the to the street. He * was en a lift eccasionally, b crosstown B. R. T. tunnel to run between them. “There ts a narrow eee ae eee nan eave rhe emergency stairway winding up trom the express level to the south} woman, une ous wa 1 in an ambulance and rushes sellevue end of the downtown local tracks. Only a few of the train guards} {mbulanes and lev knew of this emergency escape and were able to direct passengers] when the advance xuard of escap- toward it ink engers reached Uie top of t ; ered alonys 1 rway of the emergency exit they Scores of passengers wandered down and up the express tracks} pound that the way to the open ait until they came to a spot where an emergency ventilating shalt gaye} was barred by @ heavy iron grating Two 0! ee train guarc vu he them a gleam of light from above and a whiff of fresh air IDeA tela oe PaR AN rat Policeman Norman's brief description of the situation furnished] out. No one in the tunnel apparently Police Headquarters with information warranting the calling of all] ue "iat Lp ata gees heat leading to the southwest corner until ambulances in the city, the despatch to the scene of all surgeons at-] Raiph Ciengo of No. Y42t Arthur Ave- tached to city offices and the advice to the Fire Denartment to send | nue, the Hrous, discovered pacer it and forced the grating at the stree! the Rescue Squad at once and also the mobilization of all the reserves} jovey in the police stations on the east side of the city Annie Wollf, a busine oprenenta Fireman Fred Ziegler, on his way to lunch from inspecting stores | lve of Wermen's s Sheard pace in East 58th Street, stepped across a subway grating on the sidewalk | por of f1st Street and Lexington Ave- at 6lst Street just as the smoke began to pour up trom the tunnel m van mers cmareency ee eading out on th uk mo’ He could hear the tumult from below and sensed what was happening She on he Ziegler pried up a section of the ventilator grating, droppec Pee es the cleated wall into the subway and took charge of the work of me had) wathere bers of the train crew in lifting down passengers from the doo [ite omerger heading them for the 59th Street station. In a few moments ladders |fie was f from a fire truck were put down from the stree ngers were | Pers ins taken up them to light and fresh air Wolf Heroism Saves Lives o! Scores [ie lithe tunne Of Women and Children Overcome * In Lexington Ave. Subway Panic Lieut. MeGowan and Patre Fiegoli of the Old Slip station ward bound, were passengers northbound Lexington Avenug sul Wey express train, when the f Iman, « 4. When the train stopped and| tr home-| excitement devele on a} men, who were in 1 umed direct of affairs anil a @ oc let i@ing women volves faint ard calling ald of several girls who pshe raised the cover of rey exit and lifted aut who had been overcent ywed by about thirty other luding many women hey were taken by Miss comy ne to the ren's Christian Association by, where first aid) wan 1 nan who had bi pparently over val stre n, who Lox rccident where heiped porary was give by officers and employees o! | car, was of Bloomingdale's department store | doors of which is near the scene. Samuel ,J to Hloomingdale corralled all was in his office at the Ambulances and Fire Apparatus at 60th Street, Where One of First Aid Stations Was Established very calm. He opened the his car and directed the get down to the tunne He then jumped down to the time, and within a few moments had and ran to the rear of the his porters and direct xo people could get nearer the in the work of rescue Drs. | emergency exit. Then he was over- and Bahr of the pomin, ome hy the smoke dale emergency siaff, rendered valiant Edward Lobers of Croton, N. Y., an first aid servic employee of the New York Central All the stock of aromatic spirits ef] Railroad, was standing in the vesti ammonia in the Bloomingdale drug! bule of the third car of the train department was taken to the sreet which caught fire, and directly be- and aided in reviving scores. Cans|sice the panel box from which the of hot coffee from the lunch room! first flames issued. proved a godsend to rescuers, “The first thing I knew,” he said, men and victims alike “was when there was a dart of flam William J. Webster, apt} the panel box broke and a piece struck superintendent of Bloomingdale's waS!me on the hand. Three times the pins of the first to decend into the! fames went up and died down and Toway to aid in the work of rescue.) then it seemed as if the motorman put deadly gases and probally agrectat {ot Power. because there was another , iy . : flash and all the lights in the train quickly than others beeause A . was badly gassed in the army over- {Went Out. There was a shower of 3 sparks and a Jot of smoke stories was that of an Interborough AU ICE POLAR TOE EDR Ci! lineman by the name of Murphy, liv. |£ Started back with them and on the aglin 1ONdi'stceet Way I smashed a number of windows service man, left the United States |} tinsd the wome sai cnn 6 Government Hospital at Fox Hills, |De Pec SP Women and chidren ns out that This afternoon he ellevue. | BE Tie nt oon pe is in Bellevue. lthe cars were filled with smok While at Fox Hills he underwent two : y ; ; - Rey. Frank Shanley of the Church operations, He was badly gassed in ; h the World Wa of St. Benedict the Moor was Murphy wont to work for the In. [P2ssing the corner of 63d Street Lexington Avenue a little after 11 terborough this mornings. He was | Mesint overcome to-day, was brought up out {OQ ) Ad of ow of the subwe t Gist Street and in}, | oT lth th an iMainold eu lauheim's pharmacy, at No. 760 Lex: ee ee acca eng eevee hantay lected Aweetian eel elven Son derground,” said Father Shanley 1 ‘ if . : an Evening World reporter. “It waz by Miss Emma G. Rush, « registered ° Aerie 15 East Goth Stecat, puneanny. Others heard it. ‘The : *‘Jsounds proceeded from @ grating on Later he was « tended by Dr. Morton. 1922, on the When the Hedley, ough, accident occurred Frank resident of the Interbor- was at the office of the Tran- sit Commission, His first knowledge of it was given to-him by a reporter of The Evening World. Mr. Hedley and Transit Commissioners Mo- Aneny and Harkness immediately took a taxicab and in company with The Evening World reporter went to 59th Street where, through a subway exit, they made thelr way to the car on which the acctdent occurred. This car was the fourth in a train of ten cars. It was found that the short circuit occurred in a panel box on the front end of the car. According to Mr. Hedley, this panel box ts covered with a metal hinged door, is lined with asbestos, and there is nothing in it to urn except in- sulation Examination developed the fact, however, that the force of the blow- out was such that tt threw off the Nights in all the cars and even inter- fered with the proper working of the ventilators stationed at the emer- gency exits at 59th Street and at 62d Steeet According to trainmen examined by Mr. Hedley and by James S. Doyle, Dr. Harry M. Archer, an honorary Deputy Chief of the Fire Department, who helped vevive stricken victims, on gases and fumes is an authority vised me to tie my handkerchief over ang their effects and has witnessed hy nose and mouth. We helped a number of women to the foot of the] hundreds of fires stairs his," he said to an Evening Charles Dippeler. a real estate| word reporter, “was the worst broker who lives at the New York attack of gas I ever experienced at a New York fire. It shows that fire extinguishers which are perfectly harmless in the open should not be Athletic Club, was a passenger in the last car of a southbound Lexington Avenue subway train which came into hth Bt the time of the fir used in such a confined space as the “All the lights in ot r train went out] subway.” and the cars were filled with smoke “Pyrene is a safe fire extinguisher There was a panic among the women on the train and many of the windows ordinarily, were broken. They climbed through these and made their way to the sta tion, Some of us had to walk through the smoke-filled subway, and it was scarcely possible to breathe down there Russel A, Nugh, a mov pieture camera man, was an indirect victim the Lexington Avenue subway ac- News of the accident spread through cident, Nugh was on his way to the}the city with astonishing rapidity scene with his camera in a taxicab Within an hour after the first reports the newspaper extras and the chauffeur ¥ tention to traMe spaying no regulations. re given in taxi collided with anotiwer and persons began to inquire at the was thrown part way through the| Hast Sist and Bast 67th Street Police front window. His face was badly| Stations about those they had reason lacerated and he wound up in St.] to believe were on the train Vincent's Hospital Ry 1.46 o'clock inquirers began to Samuel Berent, of No, 1027 reach thé Bast 67th Street Station ern Boulevard, the Bronx, or from Brooklyn and the Bronx. They passengers of the last car, said that} asked about people who left Brook- the train was stalled for about three-]1yn this morning by subway or were quarters of an hour before the pas-| expected In the Bronx sengers were able to get out. After} The public room of the station the train had been suilled fifteen min-| house was jammed at 2 o'clock A lites the fans stopped revolving and] policeman read the names of the vic- all of the lights went out, he said,| tims of the accident as fast as they and added that even the pilot lights] Wyre brought in by patrolmen. Other in the vestibules of the cars failed, | policemen arranged an alphabetical list which was posted inside and out- the station house. The passengers were orderly until side e corner and somebody said it was|told to move toward the front of the of the Mire Department. | Murphy had an emergency subway exit and tnat{train when the fumes began pouri be * SORE ae nens WHER undoubtedly there had been a bad]into the rear cars. Several women ambulance left for Bellevue with him | A secident. below became panicstricken and their fright Within a half-hour Nauheim's and | "°C : FiNeaiipeae pana eseru mrmau uted We raised the grating and some] spread to others, and in a few seconds At ion Se a eoe in SOP Nee of us descended the almost perpen-|the orderly procession had — been he © have been Vieutar ladder. 1 should say we went| turned into a madly scrambling mob ned out of theie supplies of oxygen [Town almost. 100 feet to the exprean| it Commissioner Thomas J tanks, Every druggist and druggiat’s[20%R slmost 100 feet to the expres re Conunisaiane oman iGontinuadiee Clerk. in the dist fet. wie hel eye [track level. ‘Then we walked toward] Drennan announced that tater in the tinued from Firat Page.) injured train day a statement would be given ont eee Mon Auelon, Fente: RisiasinW) waxtaa cmosptiere Wak auftocating, [from iis oftice In the ATWAISIPs!| perk Plage, Bronx charge of car No. 7 when the first |E Met obniealiars. who ad: Bullding Sretd, Emily, No, 2169 Fifth Laing Pion ae oar Re a + Avenue, farted for the doom in’ a nenl 7 . Stein, Mrs, Sarah, No. 16 Winas A stop Bradshaw opened all of. the Stein, Max, No. 16 Winas Ave- doors and assisted ingore’ to RESON al the track . car were taken toa nenibgadl| se a Se Meee eee Avenue, Newark GInt Street, At this point the expres Sterns, Joseph, No, 210 Putnam lowe for tunnel is below the 1 al tracks in # tunnel and there is no station xpress trains near there. The street dpening ia a row well ex Victims Overcome — Fumes From Car Apparatus— Mayor Orders Chemical Investigation. tending up to the \ surface and] Victims of the accident informed Provided with ladder he thirty-six! Mayor Hylan, who was active at the passengers were cartied up through this opening by mean throus!) ecene, that a peculiar gas generated rs an : veached the street in onseioun {during the fire was terrifying and condition made breathing agonizing. One of the to i 1 No. 4 ughing and choking Vietins told the OLN Stree Davie Avenue, was yor that the gaas was evident just overcome on \ les and {as Soon AS (he Pyrene fire extinguish was given fist aid 4 ing peers, with which the subway ea . trolman, Capt. 1 nupelled | equipped for emergencies, were tu 1 to nest for some Lume L bein al- | into who ASsiNtine A ar fire r uish eneratud mer 1k arable 8 un John J Dw of the |ider vined the Maye trai " syres It \ f © ess nd and hen the | te ‘ ton devatlin 1 can uuon It dite © Ma Hylan showed intense in hitd ' V there {terest in the man’s statement and ' od s gmoke sent im jn an automobile to the Eas Phe mo : nd{HTth Street police station to make a t jout 64th Street | think. [deposition The man was accom. AS soon as the f bogan, the|Panied by D Horan passengers beean ¢ of the] Howard F Captain of war ' mora and | gine Compan 2. one o first t pees RT ene, stagwored to " Mishel Javous, « guard on tye fourth gthg street and was greeted by Mayor Avenue, Brooklyn. Surback, Jacob, No, 814 Kast Ninth Street Suskind, Gi No, 1801 Hoe Hylan culiar gas, He also complained of the pe which he sald had knocked DIED. him out completely. He said it was j impossible to live long in the air be-| ALBERS.—HENRY ww, and his statements confirmed] NSRAL CUR: those of othe other viet) GALBRAITH.—On the 4th HOMAB iraing to Grover A. Whelan, Com-] 1 GALBRAITH, beloved husband 02 missioner of .t and Structures] Bilaaveth V. Kenny, a member Mayor Hylan requested him to order tora Plasterers Chemists from the Central Laboratory Funeral from hie \ate residence, 647 lo come to’ the scene imm en ave. Bronx, Friday, July 7, at 10 take a demonstration and Paul, where a solemn high requiem guishers and & sample the deadly ga in the subwa 2 1M the offered for the repose of his Don't forget that Pyrene is a pat ented article und that sone of the|PATTISON.—FLORA B. CAMPBELL FU- ang downtown are interested in it NERAL CHURCH, Friday, 8 P.M. M Hylan told rters who fol — = ) him through his activities,| 4O8T, FOUND AND REWARD: “Now, see if you can get it printed. LOBT—An oid handbag oe Initial W. H. t Zonojos! twenty-six, of] Ds; containing men's tennis clot Harry Wonojosky, twenty six, of) oe cisig'y rabbere, palr of patent No. 112 East 104d Street, seemed to} pumpe and ma purple sha dr Tberat be one of the most seriousiy overcem4 yer nf W. H. Dewey, 214 Prospect iia by smoke and gas, Tt took forty mab | UCN NA re ren utes of continual effort by ambulince surgeons with the pulmoto r before 1c __ BUSINESS QRFORTUNITIE®. of life Mel XNTRD—Recirn lead N.Y, or vienity, showed the ie On revive and ot) a hom. |. 0 MY aeuee, N.Y. oF viata ys on oF fae ‘ aiiout July 0; leave order care of J, Kise, Bitat» [Aver Puimam’ av, oF Address & dis "weet: Gas From Extinguishers Deadly, Declares Expert, Amazed There Were No Fatalities in Accident but in a confined space it Many Inquire About Victims As News Spreads Through City Wires. one of the engincers of the Interbor- ough, there were only about 200 pas- sengers on the train. It could not be found that any of these passengers were so seriously injured that they had to be carried trom the train, But when the lights of the train went out following the explosion in the awitch- box, the hysteria of these passengers closely bordered on panic. Transit Commissioners MoAneny and Harkness, who also made an ex- amination of the car in which the ac- cident occurred, were unable to detect {ts cause. But they have ordered their engineers to mako a thorough exam!- nation not only of the car and panel- box in which the switch was located but of all passengers who were in the car. Power was again turned on In the subway at 1:18. The train was moved under its own power to the Sith Street station, the next northbound express stop, where Hediey and the Transit Commissioners returned to the street. Mr. Hedley stated: ‘‘It Is too bad we have not yet advanced to that stage of electrical science where we can forestall occurrences such as this, This is the first time an accident of this sort has ever occurred in this subway produces a gas that is quite deadly and similar to the gas that follows an explosion of firedamp in a coal mine “T am amazed that there were no fatalities, but I think I ought to warn everybody who went through the ex- perience in the tube to get medical advice. Undoubtedly there will. be serious results from this. The effect of the gas that these people breathed is to paralyze the respiratory tracts. “We had to work over one man, Harry Yonjojsky, forty minutes be fore he was out of danger. He had apparently revived after twenty-five minutes of treatment with a pulmotor but completely collap: again and was out for fifteen minutes longer. Avenue, Bronx Swain, Walter J., thirty-one, Plainfleld, N. J Vinney, Batavia, No. 100 East 129th Street Walsh, Tessie, No. 248 Brook Avenue, the Bronx Weir, Madeline, No. 287 Willis Avenue Weir, Genevieve, No. 287 Willis Avenue. Weir, Mrs. Madeline, No. 287 Wiilis Avenue, Bronx Weise, Fireman Theodore, En- gine No. 39 White, Lawrence, No. 231 West 187th Street Yager, Morris, forty, No, 18 East 94th Street Yeser, Motris, No. 618 Kast 14th greet Yonojsky, Harry, 112 East 1034 Street. NN Vacation have Th World follow you. 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