A Forty-Foot Leap From a Burning Lodging House

A two-story lodging house on Terrace Street, between Fourth and Fifth streets, was gutted by fire yesterday morning at 4:30 o'clock, and three lodgers were more or less injured. One of them, a Slavonian laborer named August Laddie, jumped from a window, falling forty feet, and is probably fatally injured. The structure burned like tinder, and the lodgers, six in number, narrowly escaped death in the flames. Those on the ground floor escaped to the street, but John Mihalick, Francis Havdeck, August Laddie and C. Kacicaurti, all Slavonians, were forced to jump from the windows.

No one seems to know precisely how the fire started, but it is supposed to have been caused by the hall lamp upstairs exploding. Police Sergt. Willard was the first to see the flames and pulled in an alarm from the box at the corner of Third Street and Yesler Avenue. Meanwhile the flames mounted higher and began to shoot through the roof with a force that carried dislodged shingles high in the air. In a few moments the neighborhood was aroused, and men and women from the adjoining house rushed into the street clad in every imaginable manner of night wear, while some of them cannot properly be said to have been clad at all. During the excitement two white figures came crashing through an upstairs window; after rolling over several times they assumed an upright position, and it was discovered that they were Havdeck and Kacicaurti. The latter was in sore distress until a sympathizing neighbor loaned him a door mat in which to wrap himself.

For a moment it was believed that all the lodgers had escaped, but just then another crash of breaking glass attracted the attention of the increasing crowd, and a white figure was seen falling down, down until it struck with a thud on the ground forty feet below. The street here is raised, and the lodging house has been hoisted up to the level of the sidewalk; it makes a jump from the walk of twenty-five feet. From the upper-story windows the distance to the original street level is forty feet, and it was here that the third lodger, Laddie, made his thrilling leap for life. As soon as Laddie struck the ground he uttered a shriek of pain and then subsided into a state of semi-coma, uttering the most distressing groans. Willing men soon reached him and carried him to a place of safety. His feet were torn and bleeding, the flesh on his right side was somewhat torn from the ribs, and blood was streaming from an ugly wound along the right side of his face and head, which was filled with dirt and gravel. As soon as possible he was taken to police headquarters, where Dr. Emmons found that, in addition to these wounds, the man was suffering from internal injuries the exact nature of which cannot yet be definitely determined.

In an incredibly short time the fire department was on the ground, and four streams of water soon destroyed the fury of the flames. They not only saved the adjoining buildings but the lodging house, which escaped total destruction, although every room is well charred and nothing but the frame remains intact.

Kacicaurti had gold concealed in the mattress of his bed, which he afterward recovered, although the outer covering of the bed, the furniture in the room and his clothes were burned to a crisp. Havdeck was also fortunate enough to recover a silver watch which was in his pocket. The vest was burned, but the piece of cloth containing the pocket with the watch therein was found in the charred embers on the floor and the watch was uninjured.

Johnson's loss amounts to about $1,900, covered by insurance.