Stanley J. Marcinkowski

Stanley J. Marcinkowski, 31, acetylene burner, saved Joseph R. Fenimore, 34, electric welder, from suffocation, Brooklyn, New York, May 27, 1947. While Fenimore and two other men were welding in the double bottom of a freighter in drydock, in bays 27 inches wide separated by plates with openings only two feet wide and 15 inches high, welding torch cables and an airhose caught fire, giving off dense smoke. One of the men escaped through a hold to the main deck 43 feet above the bottom deck, in which was a manhole which opened into one of the bays. Fenimore, after crawling to a bulkhead 21 feet and nine bays from the manhole, was overcome. After firemen extinguished the fire and cleared smoke from the hold and from bays only near the manhole, they recovered the body of the other welder, who could not be revived. A man crawled to the bay next to Fenimore and discovered him but returned to the hold without giving aid. A foreman decided Fenimore could not be removed through the plate openings without dangerous injury and that a hole must be cut with a torch through the hull, which was of one-inch metal; and it would have to be done from inside the bay. Volunteering to give this aid, Marcinkowski with an acetylene torch crawled to the bay next to Fenimore. The foreman followed and got within seven feet of Marcinkowski and directed a flashlight beam to him but became dizzy from smoke in two minutes and left. Marcinkowski, coughing and perspiring, in 10 minutes cut out a hole in the hull with the torch. From the drydock a fireman reached Fenimore through the hole and pulled him out with aid from Marcinkowski, who then got out. Fenimore was critically ill from smoke poisoning but was revived and recovered. Marcinkowski was faint and suffered acute bronchitis and conjunctivitis. He recovered.