Girl Fire Victim, 9, Wonders Why Cards Have Stopped Coming |
“Charlene, Charlene. I'm so afraid.” |
That was Jannet Gasteier calling to her best friend, classmate and across-the-street neighbor. |
Teary-eyed, both girls fought blindly to escape the angry heat that rushed into Room 210 at Our Lady of the Angels School that awful day almost two weeks ago. |
When she could stand it no longer, Charlene Campanale, 9, of 1054 N. Springfield, jumped from the second-floor window. |
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Jannet Gasteier, 9, of 1057 N. Springfield never got out. She died in the inferno. |
When Charlene struck the ground outside the school, she broke her back and split her hipbone. |
Rescuers snatched her away from the other falling bodies and sped her to Norwegian Hospital, 1044 N. Francisco. |
She's been there ever since. Flat on her back. Unable to look any way but up at the ceiling. |
Doctors have put her head in traction. They say she must not turn over. Not even move, if possible. Otherwise her spinal injury might be permanent. |
But she has nightmares. In the lonely hours of the night, she awakens from tortured dreams in which she hears Jannet calling to her. |
“Mommy, Mommy. Hold me. I'm scared, mommy.” |
And her mother is there to hold her, because that is when Charlene tries to turn over. Her mother is there not just to comfort her, but to keep her from aggravating her injury. |
Blue-eyed, brown-haired Charlene doesn't know Jannet is dead. |
Mrs. LaVergne Campanale, 28, her mother, can't bring herself to tell Charlene. “Charlene keeps asking about Jannet. I tell her that she has a broken leg, but that I don't know which hospital Jannet is in. Charlene wants to send her a card. Cards. They have become the big thing in Charlene's life.” Mrs. Campanale said. |
Doctors have fitted Charlene with special prism glasses, so that even though she must lie on her back she can see the cards her mother has tacked to the wall. |
When Charlene first arrived at the hospital, she received the brightly colored cards by the dozens. |
Now the number sent to her has dwindled to almost none. This has saddened the sick little girl who told her mother: “Gee, mommy. They are so nice. They make me feel so good, I enjoy them more than comic books.” |
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Mrs. Campanale feels well-wishers may be overlooking Charlene because she is the only one of the injured hospitalized at Norwegian American. Most of the efforts to ? the children are concentrated at hospitals where several are being treated. |
The pastor of Our Lady of the Angels issued another kind of appeal. |
The Rt. Rev. Msgr. Joseph F. Cussen said that trained nurses and blood donations “from people who have been victims of burns themselves” are urgently needed to help the injured children. |
He said nurses and donors should telephone him at the church. |
Meanwhile Saturday, the Chicago Our Lady of the Angels Fund which was nearing $300,000 received another boost. |
The publishers of the World Book Encyclopedia announced $1,000 will be donated in memory of an employe's(sic) brother who died in the disaster. |
Bailey K. Howard, president, said the donation will be made in the name of Lawrence Grasso, 13-year-old brother of Mary Ann Grasso, 531 N. Trumbull, who is employed in the firm's IBM department. |
Howard said the board of directors also voted to replace books destroyed in the school fire with five sets of the World Book Encyclopedia. |