Two stories of heroic rescues were fleshed out following a recent Columbian story about major fires in 1942 and 1982.
The blazes killed a total of 11 people; the toll could have been higher if rescuers hadn’t risked their own lives.
Michael Oris got a Carnegie Hero medal in 1942. Forty years later, Lorn Grindle got an armful of stitches, his brother said.
A dormitory fire on Nov. 13, 1942, killed seven Kaiser Shipyard workers. Ian MacMillian, a retired Kaiser physician and author of a Northwest history of the Carnegie organization, sent an email noting Oris’ role as a lifesaver.
The Carnegie Hero Fund’s website (http://www.carnegiehero.org) describes the actions of the 31-year-old truck driver.
“From outside the building, Oris went into a corridor that was filled with smoke. Tying a handkerchief across his nose and mouth, he ran in the corridor, knocking on doors of rooms at both sides. He forced open a door 35 feet from the entrance, entered a room in which smoke was dense, and carried an unconscious man to the outside.
“Again entering the corridor, he ran to the door of another room, forced it open, and again carried an unconscious man to the outside. Oris entered the corridor a third time and opened the door of a room still farther from the entrance and entered it. Flames suddenly filled the room, burning Oris; and he backed into the corridor, in which there were flames except for a small space through the center,” said the citation.
“His clothing and hair became ignited; he ran to the outside doorway and stumbled through it, rolling on wet grass and extinguishing the flames.”
He sustained serious burns on his hands and head and spent 10 weeks in a hospital. One hand was badly crippled, according to the Carnegie citation, and a finger was amputated.
That? It’s just a rash
A Columbian account of the Nov. 20, 1982, fire on Northeast 112th Avenue told how Lorn Grindle climbed a drain pipe and pounded on a second-floor window until it broke. Then, Grindle, who died 10 years ago, and another rescuer helped two boys escape.
Raymond Grindle Sr. said the next time he saw his brother, Lorn didn’t mention the fire — even though something obviously had happened.
“One arm was bandaged up to the elbow, and the other arm was red,” Raymond recalled. It was just a rash, Lorn said. And the other arm? He’d gotten stitches at the emergency room.
“He got like 40 or 50 stitches from breaking the window,” Raymond eventually learned.
And, he added, Lorn did get something else out of that frantic night: “A doctor bill.”
Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from our newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in the story or just tell a story.
