Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1906 — DIE IN A FIRE PANIC. [ARTICLE]

DIE IN A FIRE PANIC.

■ , —+ . ' . EIGHTEEN I PERSONS DEAD ■ IN PHILADELPHIA CHURCH. ■ —• ———— ——* L , ! -—* ; r Worthiper* Flee at Slgtit of Smoke, -Stair Railing' Given Way, and Women and Children Are Fatally 11 Trampled Upon. £ Eighteen i)ersons wore trampled to death and fifty more were injured Sunday evening in a panic following a cry of “Fire” in St. Parti’s Colored Baptist Church in Bth street, near Girard gypnue, Philadelphia. The worshipers were on the second floor of the building, and the deaths occurred in the crush on the narrow, winding stairs. Most of the victims were women and children. In the height of the panic men -knocked down and trampled on the weaker members of the congregamothers threw away their babies in order to escape themselves, and all their primitive passions were revealed in flie wild scramble for safety. Scores of the worshipers rushed to the north stairway, in which there was a sharp turn. The struggling persons became wedged at the turn, and the railing;gave way, precipitating scores to the floor below. Others leaped upon the prostrate bodies and made their way to the street. Only one man of all those in the congregation perished, and he was killed by leaping out of a window.

- Small Fire Cannes Panto. The panic was caused by a small blaze in the room below the church. The pastor, Rev. E. W. Johnson, had Just concluded a sermon on the text, “Why Sit We Here and Die?” and the collection was being taken, when a woman in the front of the church saw smoke coming from a crack in the floor near the pulpit and shouted the alarm. Instantly the cry was taken up by others and in a moment the whole congregation joined in a rush for the doors. The pastor tried in vaTn to Btem-lbe tide. He exhorted his eongregatioif to remain calm, but to no avail. Finally, seeing that he could do nothing, he led a hundred of the worshipers who heeded Jiis advice, to safety hy means of a rear stairway, and uot one was injured: - * At the front of the church, however, the scenes were vastly different. Men and women tore the clothes from each other's backs as they sought to gain the stairs. In the first rush several women and children fell, and over their bodies the frantic throng poured, some being tripped as they went, and soon the entire stairway was covered with prostrate forms. It became a case of the survival of the strongest.

Hu Mil Quickly Over. Iu spite of the crush on the stairs it was only a few moment before the 400 uninjured members of the congregation reached the street. There the excitement prevented any attempt at rescue until the arrival of the firemen and police. Women, nearly nude, ran about wringing their hands and calling for missing loved ones. Men, strong and willing, lacked the directing brain, and stood idly by. When the fire department arrived the work of rescue began. In the hallway on the first floor lay a heap of bodies, the living and dead mingled. The living were hurried, Into ambulances and taken to hospitals, and the dead were removed to near by morgues. On the stairway, under a heap of bodies,'was that of a baby which probably had been dropped by its mother In her flight. On the floor below a 3-year-old boy lay dead, his features trampled beyond recognition. The injuries of those who had escaped death showed how frightful the struggle for life had been. Bones were broken and features were battered and scratched by heavy boot heels. Fingermarks showed that in the struggle those fighting for their lives had not heeded the lives of others. • .

Fire Quickly Quelled. The fire In the room under the church was quickly extinguished, and did little damage. The police investigated the report that the church was overcrowded, hut could not substantiate if. The pastor Insisted that It was little more than half filled, and that there was no occnslon for anyone being Injured If the congregutiou had remained caliu.