Dennis:
During Forestry summer camp of 1970 my roommate and I plus our two partners were attempting to finish a final land/timber mapping project south of South Range. It was a great July Yoop day as it was pouring rain and very cold. Around lunchtime all four of us were drenched to the bone. The one young lady asked if we wanted to go back into S. Range and have lunch at her grandmothers home and get warm. We all agreed and headed in.

While the lady’s were fixing lunch my roomate J. Lawton and I were watching TV in the living room when I heard something like a cry out and then nothing. Shortly after I heard a cry out again and I got up and looked out to see an elderly lady in her night clothes clinging to the porch rail of the adjacent home with smoke pouring out of the house. My roomate and I ran out while calling “call the fire department”! No 911 in those days.

When we arrived nextdoor she cried out my son, and we rushed in only to be choked by the acid smoke. Crawling through the home we came to the bedroom with the bed, stove, and floor on fire and her son holding his face screaming!  We rushed him out and proceeded to put the fire out with dish pans of water from the sink.While waiting for the S. Range fire department to arrive we administered 1st aid to the son whose face and arms had been serverly burnt.

He explained that his mother was bedridden and that he had been attempting to light the oil burning stove to keep her warm. When it would not light he poured gas from a gas can on the coils that had a spark left in them causing the gas can to blow up in his face. The fire department arrived +45 minutes later and insured that the fire was out and transported the son to the hospital. I think to this day what would have happened if my roomate and I were not there on that day to assist. A great Tech memory that I shall never forget.

Fred J. Krueger 1971