Peter Cheschi, 38, printing compositor apprentice, attempted to save Paula, 5, and Janet Abrahamson, 3, from suffocation, Milford, Massachusetts, March 12, 1949. At night while Paula and her sister Janet were asleep on the second floor of their home, fire broke out in the basement, and dense smoke filled their bedroom and an adjacent hallway. Unable to reach the girls because of smoke and intense heat in the hallway, the father climbed onto a porch roof and jumped to the ground, thinking his wife had reached safety. An alarm was sounded. Assisted by several other men, the father raised a ladder to a window opposite the girls’ bed and broke the lower sash. The father and two other men ascended to the window but were unable to enter because of the smoke, one of the men becoming ill. All returned to the ground. Cheschi arrived in an automobile and saw dense flames on the first floor. Although unfamiliar with the interior, he placed a handkerchief around his mouth and climbed the ladder to the window, followed by another man. He stepped into the bedroom and, removing the handkerchief because it gave him no protection, groped his way to the bed and found Paula lying inert. Heat was intense, and visibility was negligible. Coughing violently, he carried Paula to the window and handed her to the other man, who lowered her to the ground. Cheschi returned to the bed and found Janet, who also was inert, and carried her to the other man, who lowered her. Although his throat had become congested with smoke, Cheschi at the urging of persons on the ground groped to the far end of the room near the hallway in search of the mother. He opened a closet door, thinking it gave access to her room. A blast of heat issued from the closet, forcing Cheschi to return to the window, and he descended the ladder. Paula and Janet could not be revived. The mother and another woman died of suffocation in the fire. Cheschi was nauseated but recovered. 3677-41696
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