Long Description:On May 15, 1929, the main building of the Cleveland Clinic shook
after an explosion shortly past 11:30 a.m.. The exact time of the
explosion is known due to a clock on the third floor balcony
stopped at that time. The explosion was triggered by a fire started
in the basement by an exposed light bulb that was too close to
nitro-cellulose x-ray film in the basement.
Both blasts shot through the building with an intensity of heat
which even the masonry could not resist. As the fumes leaped from
the compression of the narrow quarters in the basement they scared
the woodwork and charred stair rails. Hardened plaster was
blistered and peeled from the walls. A steel floor was blown in and
brick and mortar near the roof line was ripped out as if it had
been pasteboard. The casings of the skylight buckled and warped
under the force of the explosion and the broken glass was rained on
the floor of the waiting room three floors below.
The resulting fire released a deadly bromine gas which filtered
through the four story brick building slowly at first. Then,
augmented by the second and greater explosion, rushed up from the
basement and cut off all escape down stairways and elevators. The
hollow center of the building soon filled with gases and then the
intense heat below sent the fumes swirling upward. People had no
way of escape but the windows, and few were able to reach them.
These were enveloped in the fumes which hung about the building and
people collapsed after reaching them. Everything was abandoned as
the victims realized too late that the brown fumes curling through
door casings and along the halls carried death. So sudden was the
catastrophe that many simply had no time to reach the open air and
safety. People dropped where they were standing or sitting.
The first blast was heard by Policeman Henry Thorpe, walking two
blocks away. He immediately turned in an alarm and ran towards the
building. Just a block away he was blinded by the gas and had to
slow his approach. The first firemen to arrive turned in a second
alarm and soon police, hospital and county morgue ambulances and
vehicles were concentrated about the building.
Battalion Fire Chief James Flynn and his driver Louis
Hillenbrand were the first to enter the building. They reached the
roof and chopped a venting hole leading to a stairway, then dropped
a ladder to the fourth floor landing. Below they found sixteen
bodies laying about the staircase. They began to remove them, get
them down to the ground where first aid was performed on those with
a pulse. Several victims were revived but most perished. Soon other
firemen began to batter in windows on all levels trying to reach
those trapped inside.
A crowd soon arrived to watch the rescue effort take place, many
pitched in to help. Anxious relatives scoured the first aid
stations set up near the Clinic, nearby hospitals and the morgue
frantically looking for loved ones. The police took the
unidentified dead immediately to the county morgue to clear the
ground around the Clinic. The work of identification of the
unclaimed dead took several days afterwards. Discoloration of the
face hampered identification of some, the gas turned their faces a
brownish hue, none of the bodies were disfigured otherwise by
flame.
The fumes outside the Clinic were strong as well. Many
pedestrians caught there fell to the ground after succumbing to the
noxious gases. They lay unconscious as they were dragged to a safer
distance.
Many displayed heroic feats that day, one notably by Policeman
Ernest Staab. Ernest ultimately sacrificed his own life to achieve
the removal of 21 persons from the blazing gas filled clinic. He
had arrived while the fumes still clogged the entrance but time
after time he pushed his way into the darkened halls, facing
certain death, to rescue another citizen. Many of those citizens
survived the disaster thanks to him, some died. He had to have been
suffering greatly but he kept up his efforts. The policeman
collapsed after carrying out his twenty-first burden. He followed
those he rescued to an emergency cot and died a few hours
later.
Total lives lost was 123 people. Eighty of the dead were either
patients or visitors at the clinic, and the rest were employees.
One of the Cleveland Clinic's founders, Dr. John Phillips, was
among the dead. Most of the victims died from inhaling poisonous
gases produced by the burning x-ray film. They were found lay
clutching their throats, stifled and fighting at the last for
air.
The building wasn’t damaged badly by the fire or two explosions,
only $50,000 was assessed as lost. Quick work was made of the
repairs and the Clinic was soon seeing patients again. It was
ironic that the disaster occurred in the very place where the most
advanced instruments and laboratories of science had been turned
against pain and death.
Investigators found that the clinic was not to blame for the
tragedy and much good came of it. Lessons learned from the fire
influenced major changes at both the local and national levels. The
city of Cleveland decided that fire departments should receive gas
masks as part of their equipment and advocated creating an
ambulance service for the city. Nationally, medical facilities
established new standards for storing hazardous materials such as
x-ray film.