Gas Explosion Wrecks Parochial School – One Dead and Six Injured as a Result
Gas, which had accumulated in the cellar of St. Lawrence School, Ironton, Ohio, exploded, resulting in the fatal injury of Elizabeth Haas, aged ten years, and the serious burning of six other persons.
The gas was ignited when the janitor and a plumber searched the cellar with a miner’s lamp for a leak in a water pipe.
The children of the school were assembled in the auditorium when Rev. Dr. James H. Cotter, the pastor, and editor of the Catholic Columbian, Columbus, having detected the odor of gas, started from his seat to investigate.
He had scarcely risen from his chair when the explosion shook the entire building, lifting a section of the floor, and sending a sheet of flame from the cellar. Dr. Cotter, assisted by Mrs. William A. King, his sister, at once rushed to the rescue of the injured, and both were badly burned in their heroic efforts to tear the flaming clothing from the Haas child.
The more seriously burned children were sent to hospitals, and the others were taken to their homes.
The Catholic Northwest Progress, Vol. 31, #3, 18 Jan. 1918.
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