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HALIFAX DISASTER RECORDS OFFICE
CHRONICLE BUILDING
HALIFAX, N.S.

PERSONAL NARRATIVE
Wm. Robinson, B. A., Tor. '09.
Naval Instructor in Mathematics, R.N.C.C.

Was in bathroom off main hall of Naval College at the time of the explosion, Looked out of window and saw 'everything falling'. Rushed out of building. Then returned. Found Commander Nixon lying unconscious with bad face wound, having been flung against the door of the room he was in. Carried him out and laid him on the steps. Nixon refused to be moved until he was assured that the cadets were all out of the building. Engineer-Commander Richard Howley, who has a medal for rescue work during the Messina earthquake, and who received a hundred wounds from shrapnel on board H.M.S. 'IRRESISTIBLE', when she was torpedoed and sunk in the Dardanelles, was badly cut about the face, an artery was severed. He carried out one of the injured charwomen, who were at work in the College at the time. He "fell in" the cadets on the gravel path before the College--those who could stand, - and ordered those who were less injured to help those who were badly hurt to hospital. Robinson estimates that within four minutes of the explosion the cadets were on their way to the Naval Hospital. Within fifteen minutes Robinson himself was dressed and assisting in rescue work up Rissell St., getting people out of fallen and burning houses. About eleven o'clock he reached Gottingen St. and found that he had an artery cut by glass in the left breast. Went to Cogswell Military Hospital to have wound dressed. Nurse gave him pair of forceps to hold mouth of wound together. Finally he reached Captain K. M. Holloway's No. 5 Walnut St., where his wound was dressed.


PUBLIC ARCHIVES OF NOVA SCOTIA
HALIFAX

MGI volume 2124 number 220