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MG 1 volume 2124 number 192b

HALIFAX DISASTER RECORD OFFICE
Chronicle Building
Halifax, N.S.

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used. Patients were "shivering with the cold." There were lots of little rooms with people in them lying on the floor on mattresses, not beds. In one found a woman and a baby-girl about a year and a half old, soaking wet and had been left without attention all day. The child was unconscious and died from exposure. Lives [are] were lost for want of attention. The patients were "bathed in blood". The patients were covered with black. Impossible to get the black off. The clothes were saturated and the skin underneath was black. Saw dreadful burns and scalds, caused by patients falling on the stove, or stove falling on them. Was taking glass out of people all day and saw many eye-cases. There were three temporary operating rooms. The regular operating room was not fitted up. Military nurses soon came. Miss Murray was getting drinks of water for people who were suffering from thirst due to loss of blood. Saw one woman lying with her face cut off. It was lying on the left side like a trap-door. The face had been cut across the forehead, round [to] the cheek, and to the corner of the mouth (Miss Murray illustrated with her hand on her own face). The nasal and frontal bones were cut away and the base of the brain was exposed. The wound was clotted with dirt and hair. She was lying on the floor of the dining-room. This patient died. Another woman was lying in the corridor [with] also with the whole of her face sliced off, round to the end of the mouth. She was crying for water in an inarticulate way. The difficulty was to find a place to put the water. The bone was exposed. This was Mrs. White, who is now recovering in the Y.M.C.A. Miss Murray worked every day till Christmas. Her aunt, Mrs. Gavin Grant living on Veith St. was killed. Body was not found for a week. Her two children, standing outside the door, were watching the fire and had just reached the door of Richmond School when the explosion came. They were not injured. Their father Gavin Grant,