Weldon J. Allen rescued Amelia L. Williams from burning, Fort Worth, Texas, January 31, 1934. Mrs. Williams, 66, was in an apartment on the second floor of a house when an explosion occurred at night in a room adjacent to the bathroom. Severely burned, she fell into the bathtub. The explosion blew the roof from one corner of the apartment, tore away a section of the cornice, and extinguished the lights. The inside walls began to burn. With a section of the cornice 15 feet long, Allen, 19, student, and another youth from outside broke the screen and glass of a window 12 feet above the ground and then leaned the upper end of the cornice against the window sill. Allen climbed up the cornice, pulled off the screen, picked out broken glass, and stepped inside. Flames rose three inches from the floor and extended six inches from the walls. In response to Mrs. Williams’s cries, Allen walked through the room and 10 feet in a hall to the bathroom. He lifted Mrs. Williams out of the tub and then supported her as he walked to the hall. Rooms adjoining one end of the hall were entirely in flames. Allen was confused as he looked for a way out of the house. Guided by a call, he then helped Mrs. Williams in dense smoke and darkness to the other end of the hall and through two rooms to a rear stairway. They descended and went out of a door. Mrs. Williams died the next day from burns. Allen sustained slight burns.
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