Run for Your Life

By William Snead



It was back in the summer of ’72, during the month of June.  I was asleep in room 211 at the Paradise Hotel in Wakefield, PA.  it was around 9:00 in the morning when I, John Knott, heard a plop then a tinkle-tinkle of broken glass in room #212, next to mine.  Mine was the nearest to the fire escape.



Still groggy with sleep, I suddenly awoke to the smell of smoke sliding out from under the sink.  The intruder had thrown a Molotov cocktail up through the transom in the room next to mine, #212, on the second floor of the Paradise.  After I got up and I opened the door to #212, and choking smoke was everywhere.



To the right was the fire escape.  I desperately tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge.  My next thought was ab out 40 old men unaware and undefended in the Paradise.



Stumbling through choking smoke down to the business desk on the 1st floor was my next move.  Looie Tooie’s eyes were already popping.  I screamed at him to get all the old men out.  Looie and I herded all of them out onto the street.  And they were safe.



Ten years later, a similar incident happened at the Harmony Hotel.  The same intruder tossed another cocktail into and up through the transom at the Harmony, and eight innocent old men perished from smoke inhalation.



They finally caught the intruder and put him into cuffs.



If you’re caught in a fix in any hotel, the best you can do is run for your life.  Questions arise concerning that day back in ’72 at the Paradise.



Why was the fire escape locked?



Why would a similar incident happen ten years later in the Harmony?



Why wasn’t the intruder arrested in the first incident?



Were people burning up hotels to collect on the insurance?



The pity was both police and fire departments were directly across the street from the Paradise.