The OXO building incident, SE1

THE COMBINED AGE OF the six-man fire engine crew came to a staggering 107 years of operational service – although Alfie, with his meagre five years in, didn’t add much to those totals. He was the new kid on the block, but he was far from a rookie: six years serving in the 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment had seen to that. Unlike his fellow Emergency Tender (ET) companions, whose war service had seen two of them serving in the LFB whilst the others were either too young to fight or had been working in a reserved occupation, Alfie had first seen action in Suez, then Malaya. Sir Gerald Templer, the High Commissioner in colonial Malaya, had told his troops: “The hard core of armed communists in this country are fanatics and must be, and will be, exterminated.” Alfie had taken life with his bare hands, whereas the others had only been involved in saving it. To look at Alfie, with his handsome, smiling face and deceptively athletic frame, you would never think so. It was only his haircut, still in his preferred military style of very short back and sides, that would give the keen observer any clue to his former life.

Les and Ken were the Watch’s two senior hands. In fact, they were the eldest two on the whole station. Only months separated both their ages and length of service – although Ken, as he would occasionally remind Les, was the more senior of the two. He had finished his training at the Brigade’s recruit training school, then at Lambeth, whilst Les was only halfway through his. The pair had, over the intervening years, become the closest of friends and were a formidable duo on all things pertaining to the ET. There were things that separated the two men. Ken was a brigade driver, now only ever driving his beloved ET and Les wasn’t. Each had been winners in Brigade level competitions. Ken had excelled in both the pump-escape and pump competitions whilst Les had shined at volley ball, representing the Brigade at National and International levels.

They differed in other ways too. Les was partial to a drink and could be found on his night duties down in the headquarters’ canteen with a pint in one hand and ‘a short’ in easy reach of the other. The thread veins in Les’s nose let it be known that he enjoyed his liquid suppers more than was actually good for him. That said, Les was never found wanting on the fire-ground. One or two bursts of 100% oxygen straight from a cylinder en route to a call immediately cleared his head. Ken, on the other hand, would only ever be found with a mug of tea in the mess room, which was Ken’s domain. He was the watch mess manager and woe betide anyone who was foolish enough to leave his galley kitchen in an untidy state. At morning stand-easy Ken was like a mother hen, fussing over the crusty cheese and onion rolls that he carefully laid out on the two large but battered enamel trays which had been on the station inventory ever since it had first opened in 1937. Lastly, Ken had never had a day’s sick in his career, whereas Les took his ‘lay-ins’ very seriously. Never too many, never too few and certainly not any when he was actually feeling unwell.

Despite the watch being one of the largest in the Brigade, under-manning meant it had been below its authorised strength for months. Recent retirements on the watch had seen two ET men head off into the sunset and the promotion of their Leading Fireman to another station had left the watch short of both ET qualified firemen and officers. That is when Teddy joined the watch. Already a Leading Fireman, he had been transferred in from Greenwich where, until the previous week, he had been happily riding their ET. To say he was not delighted about his enforced move would have been an understatement, but he wasn’t the type to take it out on his new-found colleagues.

The other two ET regulars on the watch were Butch and Tom. Butch had come from Croydon Fire Bridge in 1965 when the Greater London Council was formed and the enlarged London Fire Brigade was created. Posted into Lambeth, for months, he went round still wearing his old Croydon Fire Brigade cap badge despite instructions to the contrary. Finally, a visit by the Divisional Commander and an almighty bollocking saw him putting the new GLC-LFB badge in his cap. So now he didn’t wear his cap at all. As for the Croydon badge, well that became his belt buckle on the leather belt he used to hold up his fireman’s black leggings. Tom had originated from Somerset, his broad West Country accent standing out on a watch where most were London born and bred.

There was one other ET ‘hand’. Enter Freddy Floyd. Freddy was actually a ‘floatie’, serving on the Firebrace fireboat moored at Lambeth’s river station – one of the Brigade’s two fireboat stations. A former Royal Navy gunner during the Second World War, Freddy had served for the past twenty years at Clerkenwell, mostly riding its ET. Now in the latter part of his career, Freddy wanted a quieter life and to get back on the water. He had put in for a transfer to the fireboat and got it. His ET qualification meant he was the first choice for any stand-by on the land station’s ET, something that never pleased the watch’s young river service trained firemen who had to take Freddy’s place on the fireboat!

Southwark fire station’s volley ball court was tucked away behind the drill tower on the far side of the Victorian buildings that were used as the recruits’ accommodation block. It was as far away from the fire station as you could get on the once Metropolitan Fire Brigade headquarters site. Because you could not hear the station call bells from there, a special call bell had been installed by the GPO so that the summons of a fire call could be heard by the fireman when playing volley ball. For some unfortunate residents, living on the other side of the boundary wall, it summoned them too in the dead of night when the dutyman forgot to isolate the volley ball court call bell.

For now, however, their extended lunchtime game was in full swing. It had been allowed as a lunchtime ‘shout’ had taken up forty minutes of their one-hour lunch break. The warm day and the strenuous game meant that the six firemen, the leading fireman and the guvnor had all built up quite a head of steam. They were sweating freely and patches of sweat stained their uniform shirts.

The fire call bells rang simultaneously at Southwark and Lambeth fire stations and an alarm sounded at the Divisional Headquarters located at Clapham. In fact, the sound to be heard at Clapham was a warbler, but it all meant the same thing: a fire call.  

The singular feature that made Stamford Wharf, owned by the Union Cold Storage Company, stand out from the surrounding riverside warehouses was the iconic Oxo Tower. Back in 1927, the Liebig Extract of Meat Company, which made Oxo, had built a new wharf. Its reinforced concrete structure was built on the site of the former GPO power station. But in its heyday the wharf was the largest site in Britain for the importing of meat. When erected it was the second tallest building in London: a nine-storey, reinforced concrete building with river-facing exterior cranes. These days its zenith was over; however, it was still a busy cold store along with the nearby Chambers Wharf in Bermondsey and, more recently, the Nine Elms Cold store erected in Vauxhall.

Today, however, something else was making the Upper Ground wharf stand out. It was the over-powering aroma of ammonia leaking from its condenser room. That, and the flood of warehouse workers cascading out every exit into the narrow Bargehouse Street that ran alongside the River Thames. Most had streaming eyes; many were coughing and spluttering. Some never even made it out into the street; overcome, they lay inside the loading bay doors that fronted onto Upper Ground.

The scene when Southwark’s pump-escape and pump arrived was one of chaos, something that Southwark’s guvnor was no stranger to. Already eyes were smarting as two firemen from the pump’s crew and one from the PE donned the three Proto breathing apparatus sets carried on the pump. The guvnor was wearing his fire helmet at his customary trademark rakish angle but the look of concentration on his face told a different story. With five cold stores on his station’s or the first take’s grounds, he was well aware that the main risks in the use of ammonia, as a refrigerant, were associated with its toxicity and flammability. He knew that ammonia gas can be ignited in relatively high concentrations and an ammonia explosion could cause structural damage to a building. However, he drew some comfort from the fact that the gas is difficult to ignite and so combustion can be prevented by relatively simple precautions. His pressing priority was that every second counted after an accidental exposure to ammonia refrigerant. He had given his watch station lectures about how to treat exposed individuals and the importance of proper medical treatment for ammonia exposure. The cold store maintained emergency safety showers and eye-wash stations, so individuals exposed to liquid ammonia or a very heavy concentration of ammonia vapour may flush the affected parts immediately with copious amounts of water. But these were all located inside the wharf, not out here in the street! The guvnor recalled from his own lecture notes that the flushing of the affected parts must be performed continuously for at least 15 minutes after exposure to minimise injury – injury that could involve his own crew now.

He was well aware that when ammonia enters the body (as a result of breathing, swallowing or skin contact) it reacts with water to produce ammonium hydroxide, a chemical that is corrosive and damages cells in the body on contact. Nevertheless, he ordered his BA crew into the wharf. Aware too, now, were his three firemen. Wearing their Proto sets, they had moved forward to rescue two workers who had collapsed inside of the ground floor delivery doors. Immediately the chemical started to react with their body sweat. What started as mere tingling quickly moved onto discomfort and then graduated to actual pain. The ammonia vapour found the greatest concentrations of sweat under their arms and, in particular, around their groins.

Southwark’s guvnor made pumps six, breathing apparatus required. He also requested a third ET with full protective clothing, plus four ambulances to attend. He knew his best chance of minimising further injury to his own crews, and to others, was the swift arrival of Lambeth’s ET crew.

As said, ammonia is corrosive…very. The severity of the health effects depends on the path of exposure, its dose and the duration of that exposure. Exposure to high concentrations of ammonia in air causes immediate burning of the eyes, nose, throat and respiratory tract. In serious leaks it can result in blindness, lung damage or even death. Inhalation of lower concentrations can cause coughing, and nose and throat irritation, symptoms exhibited by many of those making their way out to the street. But those by the engines knew this; they were feeling the mild effects standing some 50 feet away from the wharf.

With his pump parked upwind, Southwark’s guvnor gave short, curt, but precise instructions to his crew whilst secretly worrying what effects the concentrations of ammonia were having on his BA crew inside the wharf. The pump driver had ‘dropped’ the water tank, a hydrant was being set in and the pump’s hose-reel jets, on minimal pressure, were being used by his remaining crew to apply water spray to the faces of some of the worst affected cold-store workers in the street. Four galvanised two-gallon buckets, from Southwark’s two machines, had been filled with water so others could splash their faces and, in particular, rinse stinging eyes. The guvnor had instructed that the PE’s large applicator be set into the pump with orders to douse the BA crew upon their exit from the wharf, if needed. It was.

The BA crew were staggering, rather than walking, out of the wharf’s loading bay; carrying one casualty, they were leading the other who was clearly unable to see. She looked in considerable distress. The physical discomfort experienced by the BA wearers was intense. The corrosive effect of the gas appeared to be eating into their privates and burning at any exposed skin. The guvnor instructed his BA team to walk into the large applicator’s vast cone of water spray, undress, and then undress the casualties. BA sets, fire gear, firemen’s overalls and civvy clothes soon cluttered the ground as the five stood or lay in the neutralising effects of the water spray in their underpants and with the woman in her pants and bra. For one member of Southwark’s crew it proved more embarrassing than for the others as he never wore underwear!

The street was filling with emergency vehicles. An ambulance crew moved into the water spray, to assist with the casualties, and were immediately drenched. Ken had positioned Lambeth’s ET behind Southwark’s pump. Teddy, Les, Butch and Alfie had rigged in Draeger full protective gas-tight suits on route. Now Tom and Ken, acting as the dressers, helped the four whilst connecting the full-face masks to their oxygen ‘Proto’ sets. Normal practice dictated that two would enter the building and two remain outside to act as safety crew. But not today, as the cold store senior engineer had informed Southwark’s Station Officer that one of his engineers was missing. The man had gone to shut down the isolation valves in the condenser room and had not returned. The senior engineer also said that to stop the leak the isolation valves must be shut down.

Les was pleased they still didn’t have to wear the old Delta gas-tight suits which the one-piece Draeger suit had now replaced. Both were gas-tight and gave the wearer full body protection, but the Draeger was easier to work in. Les also happened to know the cold store’s general layout. He had attended many familiarisation visits, plus a couple of exercises, over the years. However, this was no exercise. The people around him were suffering. Les recalled the words of his wise old former Station Officer. He was a pre-war LFB officer who had led his crews with such distinction during the London Blitz. He himself had been awarded a gallantry medal, and received a badly scared back, after a burning beam had fallen on him during a hazardous and daring rescue at the height of an air-raid. The fireman standing next to him had been killed outright but he had saved two others. He had given his medal to the parents of the dead fireman; he was that type of man. So, whenever any of the watch had moaned about going on visits to familiarise themselves with a potential risk, the ‘old man’ had always said: “Time spent in reconnaissance is rarely wasted.” The ‘old man’ never spoke a truer word, thought Les as he listened to the briefing from the senior engineer.

It was agreed that Les and Butch would shut down the isolation valves whilst Teddy and Alfie searched for the missing engineer. This was Alfie’s first full body protection job. He had only ever worn the gas-tight suits on his ET course and during station training. He was not overly keen on the full face either, much preferring the rubber Proto mouthpiece between his lips. On the upside, though, he could talk to Teddy without taking the mouthpiece out – a practice that was frowned upon but nevertheless a common trait with BA firemen.

The temperatures in the cold store came in three levels. They ranged from minus 18°C to minus 30°C over its nine floors. The condenser room was located on the third floor. Whilst the common areas and staircase were not refrigerated, the place was either cold, very cold or freezing. The pliable rubberised gas-tight suits stiffened immediately as soon as the two teams of two walked into the building. They found the lower floors were packed with timbers pallets, some piled high with frozen goods, others waiting to be loaded. The rapid evacuation of the building had left forklift trucks abandoned and the thick insulated individual cold store doors ajar. The freezing air spilling out into those areas normally not so cold. Eighty people worked at the warehouses, employed in a variety of shifts. Not all had got out when the alarm was raised; the engineer certainly hadn’t.

Les led the way to the condenser room floor. Power to the lifts, and elsewhere, had been shut down after the alarm had sounded. Only the emergency battery lighting illuminated the wharf’s escape routes and its emergency exits and even that was dim. The place was in near darkness with hardly a window to be found on any of the nine floors. The four were reliant on the beams of light from their individual spark-proof ‘CEAG’ lamps, lamps that could safely be used in an explosive atmosphere. Despite their ability to do so no one spoke. They just followed Les up the stairs to the third floor at a steady pace.

The vapour cloud coming through the third-floor lobby doors hugged the ceiling. It continued up into the stairwell. It would rise to the highest level before filling the upper floors and filtering back down again if left unventilated. Passing through the outer lobby double doors the four men came across two other sets of doors; one was marked ‘Plant/Condenser Room’, the other led into the cold store. What little light there was on the stairwell failed to follow them as they passed through the outer doors. They walked into total darkness, four shafts of narrow torchlight their only illumination to work by. Les was the first to speak.

“We’ll find the valves and shut them down, Teddy and Alfie, find the engineer. He will be in here if he is anywhere.”

Divided into their pairs, they moved deeper into the plant room, an area about 30ft by 40ft. Above their heads, and shrouded in an ammonia mist, their torch beams picked out the array of pipework and control valves.

“We need isolation valves ‘One and Two’,” Butch reminded Les, but Les didn’t need reminding and kept his mouth shut as they started their search.

Looking around the floor space was easier. Teddy’s and Alfie’s beams of light cut through the gloom. By the far right-hand wall stood a cabinet of switches, various dials – and a man lying unconscious on the floor.

“Found him,” shouted Teddy, not expecting a reply. He didn’t get one as the other pair went from valve to valve carefully inspecting each ID tag, looking for numbers one and two.

A scientist would tell you ammonia dissolves readily in water to form ammonium hydroxide, an alkaline solution. Whilst the concentration of aqueous ammonia solutions used in the home is typically around 5% to 10%, here in the cold store the solution was around 25% or more and was corrosive. Anhydrous ammonia reacts with moisture in the body’s mucous membranes to produce ammonium hydroxide. Exposure to ammonium hydroxide results in corrosive injury to the mucous membranes of the eyes, lungs, and gastrointestinal tract as well as to the skin. The engineer was laying on his back; the light from the men’s ‘CEAG’ lamps showed him to be in a bad way.

Trying to find a pulse whilst wearing Draeger rubber gloves is practically impossible, but Alfie tried anyway. He felt nothing. Moving as close as possible to the injured man’s face Alfie looked for the faintest sign of life, like the man’s exhaled breath condensing on the surface of his facemask. Nothing. Alfie had seen the Royal Army Medical Corps at work, close up and personal, in Malaya. He knew a bit about battlefield first aid.

“Check his airway,” said Alfie. “Shine your torch in his mouth, Teddy. His windpipe looks burned and his airway is likely to close up completely. He has little chance unless we do something and do it quickly.”

Alfie recalled something he had seen a medic do once. “What I have I got to lose?” he thought. “He is going to die if I don’t do something.” Alfie looked round and saw what he was looking for. He ran towards it. By the workbench drawer he found a bit of plastic tubing, about the diameter of a common garden hose. Cutting off a nine-inch section, he rushed back to the man.

“Teddy, hold his head back and open his mouth wide while I stick this down his throat.”

Teddy held the man’s head steady. Already nasty blisters were covering his neck and exposed face. Holding the man’s tongue forward with a finger, Alfie inserted the tube into the man’s mouth and slid it down the back of the man’s inflamed and swollen throat.

“Right you bastard, breathe,” said Alfie as he moved up to behind the man’s head, his knees touching the man’s shoulders. He started Holger Nielsen resuscitation. “You pump his heart, Teddy, when I’ve got his arms outstretched,” said Alfie, committed to getting the man breathing again.

After what seemed an age, but in reality was only a matter of minutes, the injured man made a gurgling noise before producing a convulsive spluttering cough. Although the man was unconscious, Teddy felt the air being exhaled when Alfie compressed the man’s chest. He also felt the movement of breath when Alfie stopped the resuscitation.

“He’s breathing, Alfie. We’ve got to get him out of here and bloody fast.”

Calling to Les and Butch, Teddy and Alfie took the man out, half carrying, half dragging him back towards the staircase. Speed was of the essence. Whilst supporting his upper body they carried, in fact yanked, the unconscious engineer backwards down the staircase, one on either side of him, their rapid progress marked by the man’s boots bumping on each step during their descent. By the time they reached the first floor both men were near exhaustion when two firemen, in Draeger, came towards them.

“You Clerkenwell?” asked Teddy.

 “No, Euston,” came the reply.

“Help us get him out,” demanded Teddy.

With conditions somewhat improved in the street, ambulance crews were waiting as they saw the four firemen carrying the engineer towards the loading bay exit ramp. They swiftly cut away all his clothing and started to douse the man with water spray from a fire brigade hose-reel. An ambulance man substituted the bit of hose for an airway, not giving the discarded, lifesaving, hose a second glance. Bottled distilled water was applied to the man’s eyes and he was lifted onto a stretcher and placed in the ambulance before being whisked away, with a police escort, to Guy’s Hospital.

Les and Butch descended the staircase at a more leisurely pace after locating the valves and shutting them both down. The first closed with ease, the second with the aid of the injured engineer’s wrench. In the street, cold store employees were still being treated by ambulance crews but there was less pandemonium. Even the naked Southwark fireman had been found some overalls to wear. Other ET crews in full protective clothing would finish the ventilation, and with the cold store’s power switched back on their engineers would engage the building’s fans to safely dissipate the remaining ammonia gas.

Returning to the station, it was cleaning and testing their BA sets and the Draeger suits for the Lambeth ET crew – well, most of them anyway. Ken was headed off to the mess to make them all a cuppa and to get out the special tin of biscuits, reserved for the tender’s crew after working jobs. As Alfie left the station that evening the rubber suits were still suspended from broom handles, so as to help them dry completely, before being returned to their storage boxes. They looked like alien scarecrows hanging from the appliance room balcony as Alfie thought, “Well, that was an interesting afternoon.

The following day Alfie reported for his night duty at around 5.30 p.m. Out of habit he looked in at the watchroom to see what he was riding. He would have been surprised if it hadn’t been the tender. He saw that Les had laid-in for watch and that Butch had taken public holiday leave. Freddy Floyd’s name had been pencilled in to ride the ET, which was now down to five – its minimum number of riders.

After roll call Alfie was ordered up to the station office by the Sub Officer. As he went in Teddy was standing by the Station Officer, who was seated at his desk.

“That was quite some trick you pulled off yesterday, Alfie” said his guvnor. “The man is still critical although he’s stable. The doctors think he has probably lost the sight in one eye. You saved his life yesterday, Alfie. Teddy has already given me a blow by blow account of your deeds. I am reporting your actions to Division as worthy of meritorious conduct.”

As the Station Officer stood to shake Alfie’s hand the station call bells started playing their tune and all three headed towards the appliance room.

“Great job yesterday,” said Teddy as they waited in the appliance room to see what was going out. Lambeth’s pump-escape, pump and turntable ladder were off.

“Time for another cup of tea,” said Alfie as the tender’s crew, including a none too happy looking Freddy, made their way back upstairs to the mess room.

That evening Lambeth’s machines are in and out like a fiddler’s elbow. All except the ET, that is. Then, just before midnight, Lambeth’s house lights illuminate the station as the call bells sound yet again. The blue-coloured call light tells the ET crew that it’s their shout.

“It’s a ‘BA required’ fire at a Bayswater Hotel,” shouts the dutyman as he passes Teddy the call slip and the route card, not that Ken needed one.

The emergency tender picks up speed as it crosses over Lambeth Bridge heading north. Its crew are already rigged in their distinctive yellow bagged Proto sets. They sit silently as the appliance radio crackles into life. A priority message is sent from the Bayswater hotel making pumps eight. They listen intently, knowing it’s going to be a long night.