HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1962-01-25, Page 3Many Hospitals
Are Fire Traps
Is our hospital adequately pro-
tected against fire?
This grim question was re-
peated across the nation laat
month in the wake of the re-
cent Hartford (Conn,) Hospital
f're which killed sixteen pa-
tients, visitors, and hospital em-
ployes.
One attack upon hospital safe-
ty regulations came last month
from the New York City fire
commissioner, Edward F. Cav-
anagh Jr, who studied the
scene of the Hartford blaze while
local police guarded the smok-
ing hospital corridor for pos-
sible new outbreaks, Even
though the cause ot that fire is
still uncertain, Cavanagh pin-
pointed one weakness in his
own city's hospitals, "Eight out
of ten (hospital) fires . . , are
caused by careless smoking," he
said, as he demanded tighter
smoking, regulations.
The National Fire Prevention
Association in Boston estimated
that in 1960 there were 1,509
fires in the U,S. nation's 6,876
hospitals, accounting for $1.5 mil-
lion in damage. A recent study
of 600 fires in hospitals, the
NFPA said, showed that only
20.9 per cent were caused by
careless smoking, Among the
other causes: Defective wiring,
electrical appliances, and static
electricity, 23 per cent; mishand-
ling of oxygen and anesthetics
7;4 per cent.
"More important than the
cause of a fire is finding out why
-it spread so far so fast," the
N" 1 said. One reason for the
Hartford disaster, the associa-
tion's engineers said, was that a
janitor fought the blaze for half
an hour before turning in an
alarm. The fire roared up a
waste chute and fed on ceiling
tile made of higply combustible
sugarcane,,
"We tell our employes not to
be embarrassed to turn in a fire
alarm," a Johns Hopkins Hospi-
tal official pointed out. "We'd
I rather answer 50 false alarms
' than be an hour late for afire."
• Fire habards in a hospital m -
elude the usual ones found in
i any home, restaurant, or hotel,
and the unusual ones- resulting
from the use of highly combus-
' tible gases and chemicals in
operating rooms and labs. Am-
ong the fire precautions .taken
in many of the best hospitals are:
Smoking: "If we outlawed it,
patients would be . sneaking
smokes and we wouidn;thave
e ntrol over them," the Univer-
sity of California Hospital in San
Francisco reported. Like most
hospitals, UC allows patients to
smoke when not under sedatives
Or . oxygen therapy,
Waste Chutes: "Fires can start
from "cigarette butts dropped in
waste containers, then dumped
down waste chutes," a spokes-
man for Passavant Memorial
Hospital in Chicago pointed out.
"We sealed up our chutes long
ago."
Operating rooms: "Static elec-
tricity — which could spark en
explosion of anesthetic gases —
isn't a problem in our area of
high humidity," said an official
at Charity Hospital in New
Orleans, "but we take the routine
precautions anyhow. We don't
permit woolens or nylons in the
operating room. Everyone wears
shoes with composition soles,
and we ground the anesthesiolo-
gist."
nesthesiolo-
gist"
"The Hartford fire was tragic,"
gaid Percy Bugbee, general man-
ager of the National Fire Pro-
teetion Association, "but it may
have one good result, It is a
forceful reminder . , . that any
hospital,, no matter how safe,
must be examined again and.
again for fire hazards."
--From NEWSWEEK
One American View
Of Canada's Problem
Prime Minister Diefenbaker's
administration is beginning to
face up t'g the prospect that the
United Kingdom may join the
Common Market. The Canadian
Prime Minister is not finding
this prospect easy to live with,
He has made a great effort, with
not too much progress, to shift
more of Canada's trade toward '
the United Kingdom. Ells whole
orientation has been toward the
Commonwealth and the mother
country, Now he is being told by
Her Majesty's government that
the United Kingdom may move
in the opposite direction.
Present estimates of how Ca-
nadian trade will be influenced
ley Britain's entry into the Com-
mon Market are vague. Of total
exports to the' United Kingdom
in 1960, amounting to $915 mil-
lion, some 76 per cent would be
adversely affected by the loss
of preferred status, by new tariff
barriers or by both, Hardest hit
would be agricultural and fish-
ery products. The president of
the Canadian Exporters' Asso-
ciation recently estimated that
these might be cut to as Little
as $100 million, unless new ar-
rangements are made for their
benefit. The exporters' spokes-
man foresaw the loss of almost
half of Canada's total exports to
the United Kingdom and slim
profits on the' remainder.
Conjectures like these explain
the intense concern of Canadians
with the. decisions about to be
made by the British; They must
nevertheles be seen in perspec-
tive, even assuming that the
figures are not exaggerated, as
guesses born of apprehension
sometimes are. Canada's exports
to the United Kingdom account.
for only 17 per cent of her total
exports. They are about 21 per.
cent of Canada's gross national .
product, Annual fluctuations' in
Canada's exports often have
been of the order of several
hundred million dollars, and. the
loss of trade resulting from 'the
Common Mar k e t presumably
would be spread oven a period
of perhaps ten years. Canada,
moreover, has already taken ac-
tion to strengthen' her exports
and her balance ot payments
by depreciating t h e Canadian
dollar by over 6 per cent. In
an emergency this device could
be used again, although at a
cost to the rest of the Canadian
economy as well as to the sta-
bility of international financial
relations.
In assessing° the consequences
of the Common Market for Ca-
nada and others, there is a dan-
ger, too, of concentrating too
narrowly on immediate effects
'of tariff changes. The total
economic consequences need to.
be examined, the advantages as
w e 11 as the disadvantages.
Growth of the British economies
will accelerate. The political
strength of the West will be en-
hanced, Canada and the rest of
the world are bound to reap
compensatory advantages.
— Washington Post
There's so much inflation now,
there's no money in money.
ONE SHEET IN THE 'WIND—Jay Johansen takes his sister
Lahna and Stephanie Knott for a sail along a street in Dhah-
ran Sdudi Arabia, in his ,windmobile Jay helped develop.
the "croft/' which works well in a brisk breeze.
Kindness Proves A Killer To
Refugees From Etr.Off Island
EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Tristan refugee is taught how to give hand
signals while riding a bicycle.
By TOM A. CULLEN
Newspaper Enterprise
Association
LONDON — (NEA) — Warm-
hearted Britons are sadly begin-
ning to realize that kindness may
sometimes be a killer.
The lesson is being taught
them by the experiences of the
262' refugees from the volcano -
wrecked island of Tristan da
Cunha wholanded here this fall.'
The brown -eyed, brown -skin-
ned Tristans are incredibly inno-
cent to the ways of the world.
Until their South Atlantic island
was destroyed ori Oct. 10', only,
eight of them had seen the out-
side world. The rest had never
seen an automobile, television or
a telephone.
The British quickly took them
to their bosom. The Women's
Volunteer. Service, the Red Cross
and local school children have
done their best to brighten with
curtains,.. rugs and flowers the
wooden barracks in which the
Tristans have been housed at an
army camp near Merstham, Sur-
rey.
But : the sweet -tempered and
likable. Tristans have a terrible
weakness. Innocent of the me
c'hanical marvels of industrial
civilization, they also have no
resistance to its diseases. They
are vulnerable to the first virus.
that comes: along.
So far three of them have
died of pneumonia, despite anti-
biotics and every other medical
aid. The first death in exile —
that of Johnny Green, a 64 -year-
old fisherman plunged the com-
munity into gloom. It was fol-
lowed by two other deaths in
quick succession.
Three more Tristans are seri=
ously ill with pneumonia, while
another hundred refugees have
severe cases of influenza. There
are also cases of infectious jaun-
dice reported.
What surprises medical experts
is the suddenness and violence
with which viruses attack the
islanders. All three pneumonia
victims, for example, died "•'`b-
in 24 hours of being admi" io
the hospital.
Deeply concerned, the 1
Medical Research Counc. -
rushed a team of doctors and -. i-
entists to the army camp, includ-
ing an expert on human races,
specialists on blood, bacteriology
and chest -ailments.
Viruses are not the only worry
where the Tristans are concern-
ed. There is the whole problem
of teaching them how to live in
the 20th Century.
The island children are 1 'ng
given road safety demonstra;icns,
which include hand signals for
those learning how to ride a
bicycle. Both children and adults
must learn how to cope with
pounds, shillings and pence.
There are other, sadder lessons
to be learned. The Tristans are,
by, nature, trusting. They never
before had locks on their doors.
Explains their chaplain, Father
Charles Jewell:
"Now we must teach them not
to be' too trusting. They must
learn that there is such a, thing
as dishonesty in the world."
Not much is known about• the
early history of Tristan da
Cunha, which is located about
2,000 miles from Brazil, but there
was a British garrison there until
1817.
When the garrison was evac-
uated, one of the soldiers, Wil-
liam Glass, stayed behind. He
and a handful of other Euro-
peans, most of them sailors who
had jumped ship,- married na-
tive women and founded the pre-
sent colony.
A return to Tristan da Cunha
appears to be out of the question,
but as the Christmas decorations
were going up in the drab wood-
en huts which are the Tristans'
temporary homes, Willy Repetto,
their leader, said:
"It was an unhappy day for
us when we left Tristan, and
there will never be real happi-
ness again until we go back."
Wrong Signal — But
It Did Save Lives
The night was black and rain -
swept, and when several deer
bounded into the path of his
headlights, David J. Morris
swerved too far to the right, The
car toppled over an unguarded
shoulder into a deep (120 -foot),
wooded ravine in B e l le v u e,
Wash., a sylvan residential com-
munity just across Lake Wash-
ington from Seattle. When the
somersaulting car crashed to rest,
Morris's wife, Em, 34, lay helpless
on the soggy ground nearby, with
a brain concussion and a back
injury, and in critical shock.
Morris, an insurance underwriter,
also 34, was trapped halfway out
of the right-hand door through
which Mrs. Morris had been hurl-
ed, the weight of the over -turned
car crushing down on his chest
and abdomen. With agonizing
effort, Morris found he could
reach the horn.
What happened next, as the
principals reconstructed it last
monthb was this:
Gerald A. Polzin, 37, a robust,
crew-cut security guard from the
Boeing Co., and his wife, June,
were reading in bed in their home
about a mile from the accident
scene, when a strange, bee/ mg
sound disturbed them
"It sounds like something elec-
trical," Mrs, Polzin said Polzin
turned off the light, thinking a
faulty connection might be re-
sponsible, but the noise persisted.
Then he opened the winddw, and
heard the faint but usnnistakeble
sound .of an automobile horn,
beeping out a signal:
Dah . da15 , , , dah; dit, lit, dit;
dah . doh , .. dah,
"It's an SOS from somewhere!"
Polzin said, dredging from the
murk of his memory a smattering
of Morse code, absorbed nearly
twenty years before as an airman
in World War 2.(Thet was just
about the same time that Morris
had been exposed to Morse as an
Arniy Engineers sergeant.)
Polzin squirmed into his
clothes, snatched up a flashlight
and his carkeys, and rushed off
lo locate the distress signal. Once
the sound grew faint, and he
turned and headed in the oppo-
site direction. Finally, lie found
it
Slipping down the steep em-
bankment through wet under-
brush to the wreckage he almost
stumbled over Mrs. Morris- He
grabbed an automobile robe and
put it over her.
"Please get me out," Morris
said from beneath the automo-
bile, t
"Take it easy. I will," Polzin
said,
"How is my wife?" Morris
asked.
"She'll be all right," Polzin said
With a jack from his. own car,
Polzin started lifting the weight
of the damagedvehicle. from
Morris.
"How's that?" he asked as the
jack forced its burden Lip;
"Better, Move it one more
notch."
"OK„
"Just one more notch
"He said thatsix times," Polzin
e -called. "1 knew how he i'elt
butt said: 'I'm afraid it might roll
off the jack'."
Hailing a passing cat' with his
flashlight, Polzin ultimately
summoned police, who called a
wrecker,
Later, as both Morrises were
recovering satisfactorily in Over-
take Hospital, Morris said of
Polzin: "If he hadn't arrived,
we would have had it ... There
just aren't words to tell how 1
feel "
Polzin said of Morris: -"He was
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DOGS FOR SALE
, BORDER Collie Pups from good par
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FOR SALE — MISCELLANEOUS
WE have the best value In men's, boys'
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offer sensational value In men's shirts.
Flannelette plaid sport or work shirts,
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White dress shirts $2.99 or 3 for ea 09.
Work socks 750 per pair. Fancy stretchy
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Free illustrated catalogue with hun-
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TWEDDLE MERCHANDISING CO.
FERGUs 11 ONTARIO
cooperative. He did half the
work. Then he sent flowers to
me. Imagine.''-'.
It was some days after the
dramatic, long -shot rescue that
Polzin and Morris came to re-
alize that they were—providen-
dtially - equally rusty on their
Morse. Dah . , , dah . , - dah, dit
dit, dit; dah . , . dah .. dah
stands for OSO. ,
That's SOS spelled inside out.
Left Out Santa
And Caught Blazes!
In the heat .of August, the top
brass of Montgomery Ward &
Co. gazed with approval at the
proposed cover for the big mail-
order house's Christmas cata-
logue. It was a melting scene in
oft colours: Two small children,
appealingly pajamaed, peeking
into the living room where their
parents were decking the tree
and piling presents around it.
There were a few voices of
dissent, from executives who in-
sisted, quite rightly, that it's
Santa who trims the tree. The
majority pooh-poohed the idea.
But after 6 million copies were
distributed, angry letters started
coming in. "I was never so upset
in my life," one parent wrote.
"Are you trying to kill the spirit
of Santa Claus?" demanded an-
other, ''Y o u should be shot,"
said a third.
The critical letters totaled..
only about a s c o r e by last
month, but Ward's was upset.
Chairman John A. Barr wrote
personal apologies to each pro-
testing parent: "I assure you that
none of us at Montgomery
Ward ever had any thought of
destroying one of the favourite
Christmas stories ... As a par-
ent, I fully understand . , , I
and my associates are very sorry
that we have caused you such
concern." As added balm, he
enclosed as a present a book
containing "The Night Before
Christmas" and "Rudolph, the
Red - Nosed Reindeer" (Ward's
catalogue price: $2.69).
The apologies drew a new
round of letters, and Ward's was
breathing easily again at the
weekend. "I am rather embar-
rassed," one mother wrote,
"Thanks for the lovely book,"
Q, How can I keep the bottoms
of my metal garbage and trash
containers from rusting out?
A. Heat the bottoms of these
containers, then drop in a piece
of paraffin or candle. The wax
will melt and coat the bottom of
the container so it will not rust
— and. also, it will be easier to
keep clean.
GUNS FOR SALKI
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MODERN OR ANTIQUE
BQUGHT—SOLD-.EXOOW4GED l
RXPERT REPAIRS—PARTS SERVICII..
Poly -Choke Installation'
TRADE DISCOUNTS
MONTHLY CATALOGUE 2S@
The Modern Gun Shoe)
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3006 DANFORTH AVE., E, TORONTO
MEDICAL
POST'S ECZEMA SALVE
RAN1SH the torment of dry eczema
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Post's Eczema Salve will net disappoint
yes itching scalding and burning 'ecze-
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eczema will respond readily to the
stainless, odorless ointment regardless
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Sent Post Free on Receipt of Price
PRICE 93.50 PER JAR
POST'S REMEDIES
1565 St Clair Avenue East
TORONTO
IT'S EXCELLENT. REAL. RESULTS
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335 ELGIN OTTAWA
$1.25 Express Collect.
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LOANS to buy a business or farm To
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MUSIC
LEARN to play the piano in 6 weeke
with Symtprovised Music. Details Fre.
write P 0. Box 873, lllontreal, Que.
NURSING HOMES
BLUE Lodge Nursing Home Kindly
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VACUUM CLEANERS
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Vacuum cleaners, $14.95. Complete with
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end money order, we pay postage. Dis-
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ISSUE 1 — 1962
ON GUARD —This giant, 68.
fuut radio -telescope is being
used by scientists of the radio w
astronomical station of thy i
U.S S R. to carry out absent
vations of the moon, solar"
systems, planets and radii
nebula, It is near Moscow.
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