John Raltz Kelly rescued Diana I. Siegfried from burning, Laurel, Montana, June 11, 1947. At night while Diana, 2, was in a crib in the bedroom of an apartment in a one-story frame building and her young brother and sister were in another crib in the adjoining kitchen, the apartment caught fire. The brother escaped; and Kelly, 33, railroad-car repairer’s helper, who was asleep in an adjacent apartment, was attracted. Wearing trousers only, Kelly forcibly opened the kitchen door, near which the floor, walls, and ceiling of a recess were burning, and groped in the room through dense smoke to the crib. He felt about on the covering but did not find Diana’s sister and concluded the crib was unoccupied. Returning to the outside, Kelly was told by Diana’s mother where her crib was. He broke open the bedroom door, shattering glass panels in it, and groped in the room through dense smoke to the crib. Picking up Diana he started to grope toward the door but misjudged its location and stepped into a burning clothes-closet. Shoving down a side of the closet, he located the door and lunged through it to the outside. Diana’s sister was removed by firemen, but she was dead. Diana was seriously burned but recovered. Kelly suffered nausea and sustained burns of his lower legs and feet and lacerations of his hands and arms which healed in a month. 41069-3578
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