The Bridgeport Evening Farmer

Alarmed by Odors, Neighbors
Find Eight of Family of
Nine in Stupor.

Nine persons in one family in a house in the rear of 14 Green street barely escaped asphyxiation by coal gas early today. They were John Sember, 35, his wife Rosie, 32; their children, John, 13; Michael, 11; Rosie, 9; Mary, 7; Annie, 5; Joseph 3, and Helen, 1. It was necessary for Dr. MacDonald who responded with the ambulance to use the pulmotor on the boy, John, to restore him to consciousness.

The rooms which the family occupy are heated by two stoves, one in the kitchen and a smaller one in one of the sleeping rooms. Mrs. Sember banked both fires before retiring last night and then turned off the drafts in the stove pipes. Gas poured out from both fires all night and penetrated other tenements in the house.

Members of the family living in the tenement above the Sembers, smelled the choking fumes early this morning and they made an investigation. Mrs. Sember was the only one of the family they were able to arouse, the others lying in apparent stupor. Word was sent to the 2nd Precinct station and the ambulance called.

When Mr. MacDonald reached the house he found the rooms filled with the stifling odors, the drafts in the pipes still tightly closed and, the air becoming more difficult to breathe every minute. Dr. MacDonald opened the drafts in the stove pipes and ordered the windows opened that air be admitted.

Mrs. Sember and a neighbor ran into the kitchen and opened a window there. Dr. MacDonald found it impossible to open the windows in the rooms where the sufferers lay so he promptly broke out the panes.

The inrush of cold, pure air which followed restored all the family with the exception of the boy on whom it was necessary to use the pulmotor. At press hour it was said that all members of the family had fully recovered and would be none the worse for the experience. Dr. MacDonald cautioned Mrs. Sember about banking her fires in that manner again.