A thirty-six-year-old fireman from Truck 9, Lieutenant Michael Roche (1867–1904), climbed a ladder and broke a window to gain entrance to the second floor at the front of the Iroquois Theater, emerging in the office of business manager, Thomas Noonan.  (According to questionable testimony by Iroquois manager Will J. Davis, Noonan had leaped from an ornamental balcony in an effort to reach the ushers so presumably his office was empty.)

In the utility stairwell outside Noonan's office door, Roche met lamp operator, William McMullen, and the pair ran up a flight of stairs to a locked door on the third-floor landing.  (McMullen would later describe Roche as "the biggest man I ever saw.")  On the other side of the door were twenty to thirty people who had fled the third-floor balcony and become trapped between the door and flames billowing out from the interior auditorium exits.   Three of these victims were Elizabeth and Florence Strong and Vera Goolsby.    Before Roche's arrival, McMullen had tried to help James Strong open the door with a board.  Roche used his ax to chop through door panels and open the door.  All but a couple were dead of burns and suffocation.  Margaret Love of Woodstock, IL is thought to have been one of those.  Roche and McMullen pulled the bodies up the stairs and into the nearby Music Room.

Roche then left the utility stairwell and moved north to the third-floor balcony.  His court testimony about what they found there (see below) included a reference to something I've wondered about.  Some people died while their feet were stuck in the crevice of a seat cushion that flipped closed when stood upon.

One Iroquois survivor, a child, escaped by jumping from seat to seat.  Adult-sized feet, some encumbered with an ankle-length skirt, might easily have slipped onto the crevice of the tilting seat cushion, breaking ankles and/or ensnarling the victim.

Lieutenant Michael Roche died less than a year after the Iroquois fire, on October 15, 1904. He was the brother of Kate, Thomas and John Roche of Scranton, PA and was thirty-seven years old at the time of his death. He was a native of Kilglass, County Cligo, Ireland. His funeral was held at the home of his cousin, Officer Patrick F. Sheridan, 969 Park Ave on Mon. Oct 17 at 9:30 am with high mass at Mathew's church and burial at Mount Carmel.

Michael had been promoted in 1900, from a truckman on hook and ladder company 3 on Erie St. to a Lieutenant on hook and ladder company 9.  In 1897 he competed in a departmental handball match.

Testimony of fireman Lt. Michael Roche
January 21, 1904

"Tells of the Locked Exits
In preparation for this inquiry, the jury in the afternoon heard the testimony of firemen as to the places where bodies were found. There will be similar testimony heard today. The effect of the gallery and exit construction, supplemented by one of two locked exits, was described by Lieut. Michael Roche, who said:
'We entered through a window over the Randolph street entrance leading to the second balcony, and when we got in there we found there a door which was locked. We had quite a time to open the door, and I should judge about fifteen or twenty persons against the door, women mostly, fell out on the floor. The majority were dead, but a few still were alive. Then we made our way upstairs, and the farther we went the more we met them. Persons were lying dead on the stairs and all over.
Q -- How did you open that door?
A -- The door opens from the inside, and we had to chop all the panels out and pull the bodies through so we could get the door open.
Q -- did you find any bodies in the gallery?
A -- Yes, sir: they were right up against the door, the door was burned, and the bodies were piled four high, right up against the doorway. Just inside the door, they were just the same, extending back clear through to the north wall.
Q -- Did you find any bodies in the seats?
A -- Yes, when they started to run they stood up on the seats and their feet got caught. We found fifteen or twenty in that position.' "

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