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Show INMATES PERISH IN ASYLUM FIRE NINETEEN BODIES OF FIRE VIC TIMS ON ISLAND HAVE BEEN RECOVERED Violently Insane Patients Refrain From Attacks as Attendants Rescue Them; Some Be. leved Cremated New York. Stirring tales of ha roism In the face of death by fire, with the roar of flames and the shrieks of maniacs mingling in a wild requiem, were told Monday as Fire Commissioner Drennan started his investigation of the holocaust on Ward's island, in which twenty-flve men were killed. Twenty Inmates of the Manhattan Manhat-tan state hospital for the insane on Ward's Island, In the East river, were burned to death Sunday morn, ing in a fire which swept the west wing of the building, as were three attendants who calmly died that seventy others might be saved. The Immediate cause of the fire Is thought to have been a blast set by dredgers in Hell Gats Satm-riii night, it rocked the building terrifying terrify-ing the Inmates, who were calmed down by attendants. Hospital authorities author-ities and city medical examiner Nor. ris, wtfio rushed to the building after the fire was diiicovered, advanced the theory that the explosion had caused a break in the Insulation of electric wires, which started the blaze. The fire was discovered by Michael Mich-ael Campbell, an attendant In ward 43 in whfch all the fatalities oecur-ed. oecur-ed. nis work and that of James II11I attendant In charge and Patrick Bil-tigan Bil-tigan of Hartford, Conn., and George Deemo and George F. Reiss, the three attendants who were burned to death, prevented a far greater holocaust holo-caust Campbell manned a hose line and fought back the flames while the others directed by him, ran up and down the 200-foot top floor corridor rousing the patients with the cool order: "All op for breakfast." The unnamed maniac, whose one passion was a lust to kill, temporarily temporari-ly became rational during the fire and helped many of his companions to get out through a window, calling to them soothingly. When the danger dan-ger was passed he lasped again Into insanity. The three attendants who died rusmed Into the flames again and again, darting down o veritable cor-ldor cor-ldor of death to carry on their work of rescue. One was found pinned in a doorway by a barred beam, his hand still clutching the shoulder of the man he way trying to save. |