Richard C. Dorner, 33, store manager, saved Marie V. Lee, 64, from burning, Newport, Rhode Island, April 21, 1957. In late afternoon while Mrs. Lee, an invalid, was asleep in a second floor bedroom of a frame dwelling, fire broke out at the bed. Mrs. Lee’s daughter found her mother’s room completely filled with dense smoke. While she telephoned a fire alarm, her husband and then a neighbor and his wife each attempted to enter the bedroom but were driven back by the smoke and intense heat. Dorner was attracted and, learning that another person was trapped upstairs, entered the dwelling, with which he was not familiar. He ascended a stairway to the second floor hall, where dense smoke extended downward to a foot above the floor. Peering through less dense smoke near the floor, Dorner noted the open door of Mrs. Lee’s bedroom at the end of the hall. He crawled through the hall and into the room, coughing from the smoke. His eyes by then were watering profusely, and he closed them tightly as he crawled about the room with his head near the floor. Locating the bed, he probed its surface and touched Mrs. Lee, who was unconscious. Dorner opened his eyes and saw flames burning near him on the bed and on two walls of the room. He pulled Mrs. Lee from the bed, dragged her to the hall and thence to the stairway, where he got to his feet and carried her from the dwelling. Firemen arrived and extinguished the flames, which had badly charred the bedroom and destroyed its furnishings. Mrs. Lee was removed to a hospital, revived, and treated for smoke inhalation. Dorner, who had inhaled some smoke, suffered temporary throat irritation. Both recovered. 44154-4147
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