Free Bath Massacre: America's First School Bombing by Arnie Bernstein Page B

spot where they knew some unused telephone poles lay on the ground. With the help of men already at the scene, including Smith’s brother Glenn, they managed to fit a telephone pole into the sedan.
    They drove back quickly, pulling up to the school. Hart didn’t want to park too close to the building. What was left of it could collapse without warning.
    In his rearview mirror, Hart noticed a Ford truck directly behind him drawing up to the curb. 91
     
    A young garage mechanic, Elton McConnell, had been helping pull children from the debris. For some reason, he left the scene, passing a truckas it pulled up. McConnell recognized the machine as Andrew Kehoe’s, a man he knew from around town. 92
     
    Dart Lang saw a flash and heard an explosion. It sounds like a bomb dropped from an airplane, he thought. A great cloud of smoke rose from the street. When it cleared, Kehoe’s machine was gone. 93
     
    Within the rubble Beatrice Gibbs was in bad shape. Her left arm and both her legs were fractured. She was bruised and cut all over.
    What had happened? It just didn’t make sense. Why, yesterday she had turned ten years old; now she was trapped, broken and bleeding. She could see a radiator dangling just above her. The pain was too much; Beatrice finally passed out.
    A sudden
boom
from somewhere nearby shook the debris. Beatrice woke up and opened her eyes. The radiator was gone. 94
     
    Always a professional, Chief Lane quickly assessed the frenzied situation. Other people clearly were handling the rescue; he needed to concentrate on his task at hand. He was intent on finding the cause of the explosion. A gut feeling told him that some kind of high-test gasoline had caused it. Rural schools throughout the area employed this volatile fuel—commonly used to power airplanes—to run furnaces. This practice, Lane felt, was dangerous, potentially deadly, a devastating accident waiting to happen.
    Lane poked through the basement but saw no signs of a gasoline explosion. Maybe someone upstairs, perhaps another fire official on the scene, would have more information.
    Debris was everywhere. Lane stepped over a chunk of what looked like rubble.
    It was strangely quiet down there. Compared to the chaos outside, Lane was surrounded by relative silence. 95
     
    Although she didn’t take any children into her home, Mrs. Warner’s house was a hub of activity. People came for bedding and cots to be used in the triage area. Now Mrs. Warner was making sandwiches and coffee. It was hard to believe that just fifteen minutes had passed.
    Without warning a second explosion—louder this time—sent Mrs. Warner reeling. She heard glass breaking as windows shattered. A lock blew out of one of her doors; screws skittered across the floor like mice. 96
    Don Ewing went from playing catch to rescuing children. He wondered what could have caused such a horrendous explosion. Maybe a boiler in the cellar had exploded. If not that, maybe something in the chemistry laboratory had gone horribly wrong.
    He pulled a few victims from the wreckage of the school and then went looking for his mother. Suddenly Ewing heard a second explosion.
    A car must have caught fire, he thought. A gas tank must have exploded. 97
     
    The explosions at Kehoe’s farm could be heard at the school. One child, safely out of the wreckage, believed the sound was an approaching thunderstorm. We’d better run because it’s going to rain, he thought.
    Another boom sounded through the air. Through the treetops, the child saw a ball of flame. 98
     
    Lawrence Hart and Frank Smith were joined by a couple of men who helped them get the telephone pole out of Huyck’s sedan. The men dragged the heavy pole toward the collapsed roof where it could be put into place as a crude lever.
    Moving the pole was no easy task, but the group was determined. They had got ten or twelve feet when Hart heard another blast. This one knocked him to the ground. 99
     
    Age was no impediment when it came to