|
Police, fire and volunteers removing bodies from
the Iroquois theater worked out a
makeshift triage system. The living were
taken next door to J. R. Thompson's diner where
volunteer doctors and nurses administered first aid or lifesaving
measures. Some were sent on to a hospital, some taken
back outside and added to rows
on the sidewalk of the declared dead, awaiting transport to
morgues. Most often these were privately owned
funeral homes. Newspapers would later tell
the story of a woman at Thompson's diner who moved
after having been relegated to a pile of corpses
|
|
And of a man who woke up in a wagon of bodies being
transported to the morgue. History will never
know the answer but it seems probable there were
others who were judged as dead though they had a spark
of life left, but died while laying on the sidewalk, at the morgue or in a body wagon.
Of those in critical condition who made it to a
hospital, how many survived? Seemingly never
tabulated. Presumably they at least had
morphine and nurses. All involved did they
best they could but there were eight hundred dead
and injured victims — in the dark and in freezing
temperatures.
|
