John M. Finlay, 33, butler, saved Oscar C. Greene, 42, assistant to the president or an organ company, and attempted to save Anna O’Grady, 30, from burning, Southampton, New York, May 25, 1930. At night, fire started on the first floor of a house in which Greene and his wife were guests. Greene made his way from a room on the second floor through dense smoke and heat to his wife’s room on the same floor and fell unconscious. Mrs. O’Grady was on the third floor. Finlay ran to the house and found much of the lower floor in flames, including the room beneath Mrs. Greene’s. Mrs. Greene could not get her husband out of the window, and Finlay with great difficulty climbed a vertical water pipe and entered a window of her room. He then lifted Greene and shoved him out of the window and dropped him to a man on the ground. Mrs. Greene climbed out of the window and dropped into the arms of the man. Finlay then released the lock on the door of the room to go up a stairway for Mrs. 0’Grady, and the door struck against him with great force, knocking him across the room. He returned to the door but could not pass through because of smoke and fire. Thinking of the possibility of climbing to the roof and of reaching a window of Mrs. O’Grady’s room, he then stood on the window sill, clung to a horizontal water pipe close to the eaves, and made his way four or five feet along the pipe. The pipe was hot, and Finlay dropped 16 feet to the ground. The room from which Greene was rescued was destroyed. Greene recovered. Mrs. O’Grady lost her life in the fire. Finlay suffered from stiff and sore muscles and was disabled a week.
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