12

In the bloody shambles which was the rear of the tourist cabin of Flight Two, Dr. Milton Compagno, general practitioner, was exerting the utmost of his professional skill in an attempt to save Gwen Meighen's life. He was not sure he would succeed. When the initial explosion from D. 0. Guerrero's dynamite bomb occurred, Gwen-next to Guerrero himself-was closest to the explosion's center. In other circumstances she would have been killed instantly, as was D. 0. Guerrero. Two things-for the moment-saved her.
Interposed between Gwen and the explosion were Guerrero's body and the aircraft toilet door. Neither was an effective shield, yet the two together were sufficient to delay the blast's initial force the fraction of a second.
Within that fractional time the airplane's skin ripped, and the second explosion-explosive decompressionoccurred.
The dynamite blast still struck Gwen, hurling her backward, gravely injured and bleeding, but its force now had an opposing force-the outward rush of air through the bole in the fuselage at the aircraft's rear. The effect was as if two

tornadoes met head on. An instant later the decompression triumphed, sweeping the original explosion out with it into the high-altitude, darkened night.
Despite the forcefulness of the explosion, injuries were not widespread. Gwen Meighen, the most critically hurt, lay unconscious in the aisle. Next to her, the owlish young man who had emerged from the toilet and startled Guerrero, was wounded, bleeding badly, and dazed, but still on his feet and conscious. A half dozen passengers nearby sustained cuts and contusions from splinters and bomb fragments. Others were struck, and stunned or bruised by hurtling objects impelled toward the aircraft's rear by the explosive decompression, but none of the latter injuries was major.
At first, after decompression, all who were not secure in seats were impelled by suction toward the gaping hole in the aircraft's rear. From this danger, too, Gwen Meighen was in gravest peril. But she had fallen so that an arm instinctively or accidentally-encircled a seat base. It prevented her from being dragged farther, and her body blocked others.