HEROISM OF MONTGOMERY '15 SUBJECT OF GRAPHIC STORIES

Among the victims of the Knickerbocker Theatre disaster in Washington, D. C., Jan. 29, was Scott Montgomery '15, Chief of the Accounting Division of the War Risk Insurance Bureau, the last person to be taken alive from the ruins. Montgomery's heroism in refusing to be rescued before the women were taken from the building was the subject of many graphic stories in newspapers throughout the country. Two of the accounts are quoted here for the interest they may have for Dartmouth alumni.

Scott Montgomery, chief of the Accounts Section, United States Veterans' Bureau, killed in the theatre crash, was a veteran of the world war, in which he served as a sergeant in the Medical: Corps. He lived at 1824 Biltmore Street. He was taken from the ruins alive, but died at the hospital four hours later. His body was taken to Spear's undertaking establishment, 1208 H Street.

Sergeant Montgomery was a hero to the last. Found by his rescuers pinioned by a heavy steel girder and almost buried in a mass of cement and plaster and barely alive, he protested that he was all right and murmered, "For God's sake, help the women!" He had been accompanied to the theatre by Miss Veronica Murphy of 1860 California Street and she was killed by his, side. It was in her behalf that the dying man appealed for help."

(From The Washington Times)

"For God's sake, help the women: I'm all right."

Lying prone under thousands of pounds of steel girders, plaster and cement, Scott Montgomery, the last man to be taken from the scene of the disaster alive, but suffering fatal wounds, thus exhorted the men who for hours strove to extricate him.

Beside him, with one arm around him, lay the body of Veronica Murphy, the girl who had gone out with him early Saturday night for entertainment.

Twelve hours, conscious all the time, and with perfect possession of his faculties, Montgomery pleaded with his rescuers to "leave me alone and get Veronica and the others out."

Montgomery's legs were almost severed from his body by the weight of a steel girder. His head was crushed under a weight of debris. But still he thought not of himself but of those whose plight was worse than his.

Doctors gave Montgomery three injections to keep him alive, and fed him through a rubber tube slipped through a crevice in the wreckage.

After an acetylene torch had cut the girder which held him, Montgomery still protested that they should take out others first. It was impossible to lift him from his position because Miss Murphy's arm was over him, and it was not until doctors had broken this that he was finally taken out and carrried to Walter Reed Hospital. He died there at 11 o'clock in the morning.

Montgomery served in France with the A.E.F. filling the. position of sergeant. He was chief of the Accounts Section of the Veterans' Bureau and lived at 1824 Biltmore Street.

(From the Washington Post)