Walter G. Cloninger saved Bernard A. McGannon from burning, Covington, Kentucky, July 7, 1935. While McGannon, 37, was sleeping in the rear bedroom of his apartment on the second floor of a frame duplex dwelling, the apartment took fire at night. Flames filled the kitchen, which was between the bedroom and the dining room, from which a door opened to the stairway. A young man in an effort to rescue McGannon ascended the stairway, crawled on hands and knees under dense smoke through the dining room to the doorway of the kitchen, and then retreated to the ground floor. CIoninger, 47, automobile mechanic, who lived on the ground floor and wore only his underwear and trousers, was attracted and ran up the stairway. On his hands and knees be crawled through the dining room to the kitchen. Flames extended 30 inches through the upper part of the doorway from the kitchen to the dining room. The walls and ceiling of the kitchen were burning, flames extending down to within 40 inches of the floor. Cloninger crawled across the kitchen to the bedroom, in which he groped in darkness and found McGannon, who was too weak to crawl. Cloninger placed McGannon on his back and then crawled back to a point in the dining room, where he met a man, who was crawling and had a wet handkerchief over his nose. Supporting McGannon between them, Cloninger and the man crawled to the stairway and went down. McGannon sustained slight burns.
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