Bernard S. Edwards, Sr. saved Kate Allison from burning, Central City, Kentucky, November 15, 1961. When fire broke out at night in a rest home of frame construction, the staff began evacuating the patients. After flames filled the front end of the building, which contained 14 rooms, most of the elderly patients were removed through a utility room at the rear with the aid of other persons. The roof at the front end of the building caved in, and flames rose 60 feet. The woman in charge of the home screamed that some patients still were inside. After a janitor, 18, and schoolboy, 16, rescued a 58-year-old woman from the home, Edwards, 40, laborer, entered the utility room in the home and crawled to a bedroom door three feet from flames spreading in the hall. Crawling into the room, he found Mrs. Allison, 80, on the floor beside her bed and discovered that, as she tended to wander at night, one of her feet had been tied to the bed by a nylon stocking. Flames had burned through one corner of the room, and burning pieces of cardboard fell from the ceiling. Unable to tear the stocking that held her, Edwards left the building and obtained a knife. He then crawled back into the bedroom and cut the stocking. Edwards pulled Mrs. Allison into the hall and carried her from the building. Two other women patients died in the fire. Firemen extinguished the flames, but only four rooms remained standing. The 58-year-old woman recovered but Mrs. Allison died following a heart attack on the way to the hospital.
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