School Fire Horror Probed |
CHICAGO, Dec. 11 - (AP) - A coroner's jury of experts Wednesday visited the ruins of Chicago's worst school fire in an effort to establish what caused it. |
Members of the jury, principally specialists in fire investigations and build construction, carefully inspected the fire-blackened Our Lady of the Angels school where 89 children and three nuns were fatally injured Dec. 1. |
On the upper floor of the two-story school house, where virtually all the victims were trapped, they saw charred walls and what little remained of the roof. Now covered open text books on most of the desks in what once were crowded class rooms. |
The jurors credited a closed steel door that shut off a stairway at the rear of the building with holding back the fire from the first floor as it raced upward from the basement. There was no such door on the second floor. |
The stair well, acting as a flue, appeared to have carried the full force of the fire to the upper floor. |
Earlier, the jury heard pleas from several weeping mothers of fire victims that steps be taken to prevent a repetition of the tragic blaze. |
Mrs. Fred Wisz, 31, whose son, Joseph, 10, perished in the fire, was led to the witness stand by her husband, Mario, 38. |
“As a mother, I hope and pray it never, never, never, will happen again,” she said. “Make our schools more safe. It happened. It was God's way. Who knows why? I hope my son did not lose his life in vain.” |