A doorman in the Stardust nightclub crawled into the burning building to help pull out a young girl who was “completely on fire” and who “appeared to be dead” when she was brought out, an inquest has heard.
On Wednesday, the jury in the Dublin District Coroner’s Court, sitting in the Pillar Room of the Rotunda Hospital, heard the original statements of a number of unavailable witnesses. The statements were read into the record by members of the coroner’s legal team, during the inquest into the fire that killed 48 people when it swept through the Stardust nightclub in the early hours of February 14th, 1981.
The statement of Patrick J. Murphy, a doorman at the Stardust, was read out by Mark Tottenham BL. Mr Murphy said that at 1.45am on the night, he was approached by a female who said: “They’ve started a fire in the corner,” and pointed to the far end of the partitioned area near the main bar.
Mr Murphy went to the partition and rolled under it, and he saw in the far right-hand corner the top of a seat on fire. He got a fire extinguisher and attempted to put out the fire, which had spread across the tops of the seats, but it did not seem to make any difference.
“I noticed intense heat from the ceiling, which started to melt, and parts of it dropped onto tables and seats starting more fires,” he said.
He said the ceiling collapsed, filling the area with fumes and black smoke.
“I was overcome by fumes and smoke and made my way to the door leading to the kitchen,” he said, going on to say that he got sick in the bar area and when he recovered, he left the premises through one of the doors.
Mr Murphy said he ran around outside to the exit doors. Some patrons were lifting out a man who was badly burned, and the place was engulfed in flames.
When we got her out, she appeared to be dead.
“I saw a young girl run towards the door, and she fell about four feet inside the door. This person was completely on fire. When she fell, I and two others crawled in and pulled her out. When we got her out, she appeared to be dead,” he said.
He said that people were shouting through the windows of the toilets, and Mr Murphy said he helped others get the grating off the windows and helped two people out of the windows.
The statement of Patrick Joseph McGrath, who was general maintenance man for the Stardust, was also read by Mr Tottenham.
Mr McGrath said that three weeks before the fire, the assistant manager told him that someone had reported smoke at the back of the club, which was thought to be coming from a heating duct. He said that he believed this to be impossible, as that section of heating was out of operation for some time.
Further evidence that Mr McGrath gave to a previous tribunal was also read out, in which he confirmed that a horizontal bar was missing on one of the exit doors, and another bar was fitted upside down, which he said was an error made by the carpenter.
He said that this did not affect the opening of the door. He also said that a couple of weeks before the fire, a decision was made by management to put steel plates on the toilet windows.
He was asked if there had been neither bars nor plates on the windows, were the windows big enough to permit a person to wriggle through, to which he replied: “It is possible, I suppose.”
The statement of another doorman, Michael Griffin, was also read out. He said that on one occasion, he was told by his boss to remain at one of the exit doors, which was locked and chained. He said he was told only to open the door in an emergency.
Mr Griffin also said that on the night of the fire, a ramp that was a mobile extension of the stage was left near exit four. He said the ramp was 18–20 feet long and six feet wide, and the end of it was five feet from the door. He said it covered about half the door, and there were a number of stools near the ramp, leaving only about two and a half to three inches of a gap to get out when the panic came.
“These stools and ramp caused a serious obstruction when the people were attempting to escape from the fire,” Mr Griffin said in his statement.
However, during a subsequent tribunal, Mr Griffin said that the gap was three and a half feet, not inches, and he told the tribunal that the ramp “could have caused an obstruction”.
Exit door
The statement of Liam O’Connor was read by Mr Tottenham. Mr O’Connor said that he went to the Silver Swan pub on the night in the same complex as the Stardust. Outside the pub he met two men, one of whom had been refused admission into the Stardust, so they decided to try to get into the Stardust without paying.
Five of them went to the side of the club to an exit door and found steel bars. He said that one man tried to pull open the doors with his hands but was not able to.
“We pushed the pieces of bars into the joints where the doors meet and tried to press the doors open, but it would not open. The middle of the door opened out about three or four inches but would not come any more.
“There was a clip on this door and I saw a chain coming off the bar on the door. While the door was prised open, we pulled on the door, but it would not budge,” Mr O’Connor said.
The jury also heard evidence from Maeve Naughton, who was a waitress in the Stardust. She confirmed to Simon Mills SC, a member of the coroner’s legal team, that she saw the flames coming out over one part of an alcove in the Stardust.
She said the fire was “going flying down the alcove” and she could see it “blowing”.
She said the ceiling was “crackling” for a few minutes before she saw the fire and she thought she was going to get electrocuted.
“There was crackling from the ceiling, that was the most frightening. I thought I was going to get electrocuted. I thought the wires were going to come down,” she said.
The inquest continues on Thursday.
