Lella D. Johnson, 28, housemaid, saved Barbara Jo Halbrook, 4, from burning, Rayon City, Tennessee, November 13, 1942. While Barbara was in a bedroom on the ground floor of a frame house, kerosene in a stove exploded in an adjoining living room; and the walls and ceiling of the living room caught fire. The child’s mother on the outside became hysterical. Miss Johnson, holding her breath and shielding her face with one arm, entered the living room through an outside doorway; and bending low amid flames, she groped her way along the wall to the bedroom and to Barbara, her hair becoming ignited. She carried Barbara through a hall, which was filled with smoke, and into a kitchen, in which flames were six feet from her. Carefully she opened a door having a loose knob and went onto a screen-enclosed porch. She tried to open an outside screen door but could not; and then she forcibly broke through the door, sustaining a long, deep cut on her thigh. She fell and became hysterical. Five minutes later the ceiling of the living room fell in. Miss Johnson sustained severe burns on her neck, shoulder, and arm and lesser burns on back and thigh and was disabled for two weeks. Barbara was not injured. 39708-3303
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