Pat Darcey, a firefighter for five years, relaxes at his home after being burned in Sunday morning's fire on Sackville Street.
By BOB JONES of The Free Press
A young Toronto woman was found dead by firefighters who battled intense heat in a fire at 131 Sackville St. Sunday morning.
Arlene S. C. Gooding, 23, a student at the University of Western Ontario’s teachers’ college, died despite the efforts of firemen and neighbors to save her.
Police said today that an autopsy will be performed at the provincial pathologist’s laboratory in Toronto to determine the exact cause of death.
Capt. Frank Bell and Firefighter Pat Darcey both suffered burns trying to get inside the blazing, second-floor apartment of the duplex. They were treated at Victoria Hospital.
Capt. Bell said he can’t recall such intense heat.
Capt. Bell, Firefighter Darcey and Firefighter Pat O’Brien were engulfed by flame and smoke as they tried to enter an open door at the top of an outside landing.
The flames melted Firefighter Darcey’s helmet, burned his coat and scorched his boots. Capt. Bell’s fire coat was also burned. Firefighter O’Brien escaped injury.
Capt. Bell said he found the woman behind a television set in the living room, “propped up in a corner.”
He said it appeared she had attempted to escape through a rear window but was overcome. Another occupant of the apartment, James Wilson, 24, escaped but suffered minor burns. He was treated in hospital.
Ken Pipher of Woodstock, an inspector with the Ontario fire marshal’s office, said the fire started in a chesterfield in the living room, located at the rear of the apartment. The alarm was turned in at 7:40 a.m.
John de Kwaasteniet, 15, of 141 Sackville St., said his mother, Rose, woke him when she saw smoke coming from a window in the duplex two doors away.
He used the emergency 911 phone number to alert the fire department.
The teen-ager said he ran down the street and saw Mr. Wilson, nude, standing on the roof of the verandah, screaming “there’s a girl inside.”
The youth said he and the resident of the lower apartment at 131 Sackville, Havey Beebe, ran up the outside stairs and tried to get into the upper apartment. Mr. Beebe broke the lock and the two of them forced open the door.
“That’s about as far as we got,” said the de Kwaasteniet youth. “The smoke was too heavy.”
Mr. Beebe attempted to get in by crawling on his stomach but was turned back.
The youth said they phoned for an ambulance from Mr. Beebe’s apartment.
Fred Northover of 133 Sackville said he was shaving when he heard someone “yelling.” He said he also heard something that sounded like a “bang,” perhaps a door slammed.
Mr. Northover said he saw firefighters helping a man wrapped in a blanket off a ladder.
Capt. Bell said that when he and the other two firefighters got to the top of the outside stairs – the only entrance to the apartment – they were “engulfed” by fire.
District Fire Chief John Johnson, commenting on the burned equipment, said: “Even steel will burn if the heat is intense enough.”
He said the helmet – even though it melted – protected Firefighter Darcey’s head.
Fire Chief Ray Morley said he wanted the “community to know that our men made one helluva terrific effort to get in there to save that girl.”
Chief Morley said the heat may have reached 500 degrees but that the woman probably expired when the temperature reached the 200-degree mark.
Chief Morley said it appeared she tried to open, or break the window, but was overcome by carbon monoxide poisoning.
