| Notes |
- Buffalo NY Courier Express - 4/29/1947
Two men died of carbon
monoxide fumes and their
wives, one of whom broke out
of a gas-filled cottage by
smashing a window, narrowly
escaped the same fate yesterday
at Lime Lake, Cattaraugus.
County vacation resort.
The dead were:
Robert Isaac Brayton. 64. of
East Emery Rd., South Wsles.
former operator of Brayton s Hotel.
Cornelius Edward Van Valkenburg,
30, his son-in-law, of the
same address, a mechanic employed
at a Buffalo garage.
Taken to Millard Fillmore Hospital
was Brayton's wife, Edna.
54, whose condition was described
as critical. Revived at Lime Lake
was Mrs. Betty Van Valkenburg.
27. She was taken home.
Blamed for the deaths was a
gas heater with no outside venl
in the living room of the Braytons'
cottage.
Mrs. Van Valkenburg's action
was responsible for saving her
mother's life. She broke the window
of her bedroom and crawled
outside when she found the doorway
blocked by the body of her
husband.
The tragedy was discovered
about 6 p. m., a few minutes after
a neighbor, Mrs. Raymond Haynes.
noticed an auto, with Mrs. Van
Valkenburg at the wheel, drive up
in front of Mrs. Haynes' cottage
and park.
"I noticed the car and became
suspicious when she failed to get
out," said Mrs. Haynes. "I went
outside and noticed that Mrs.
Van Valkenburg was in a daze
and having great difficulty la
speaking. I managed to catch
something about treufcia « | the
cottage."
Mrs. Haynes spread the alarm,
calling neighbors and police to the
scene. A door was broken down to
gain entrance at the Brayton cottage.
Brayton's body was found in a
front bedroom. His wife was in
bed. On the floor, blocking the
door of another bedroom was Van
Valkenburg's body. It was from
this room that Mrs. Van Valkenburg
crawled through jagged glass
after breaking a window.
"Apparently Van Valkenburg fell
after rising from bed, his bodv
causing the door to slam shut and
cutting off the spreading fumes,"
said Coroner Charles B. Perkins of
Franklinville. "Otherwise, his wife
probably would have lost her life,
too. The door to the Brayton's
bedroom was open."
Overcome la Sleep
Dr. Perkins, who issued certificates
of accidental death by carbon
monoxide poisoning for Brayton
and Van Valkenburg, said Mrs.
Van Valkenburg apparently awoke
•in a semi-conscious condition and
was unable to move her husband's
body.
"Had she been able to open the
door, she probably would have been
felled by the fumes," he said.
The coroner aaid all four victims
were overcome during their aleep
and that the women's lives were
saved because they were sleeping
with their headsaway from door-
ways leading to the gas-saturated
living room.
"The men must have been sleep-
ing on the sides of the beds facing
the doorways." he said. "Van Val-
kenburg had been dead seven or
eight hours; Brayton, five or six."
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Abt 1917 - 1947 (30 years)