Even more disturbing and more prophetic were Dunn’s conclusions, published on the same pages, about how firefighters should expect panicked civilians to react: “People trapped in a burning high-rise who can’t be reached by your tallest ladder will leap to their death; they’ll try to escape by climbing down ropes or knotted bedsheets, and fall while doing so; they’ll scribble notes in desperation, telling of their location, and drop them from smoky windows; they’ll leave their last cries for help recorded on the telephones of dispatchers.”
