Girl Attempts to Kill Herself by Jumping in Fire Evanston Girl Thrusts Herself Into Furnace, Take Fire Own in Life, Attempt to Evanston, Ill., Feb. 18.-(UP)-, Miss Helen Friedrichs, 22, has proved her assertion that she could thrust herself in a furnace as did Elfrieda Knaak in Lake Bluff last October. But Miss Friedrichs was unable to endure the pain. She thrust her arms and head into the furnace of her home here yesterday, burning herself severely. Her screams brought her father, Adam Friedrichs and she was taken to the Evanston hospital. "I was too much of a coward to go through with it," Friedrichs said she whispered. Friends of the girl said she declared last fall that she would be able to burn herself just as Miss Knaak did. Miss Knaak, who died of her burns, said she sought to purify herself of her love for a Lake Bluff policeman, Dr. G. W. Boot, who attended Miss Freidrichs, said she had suffered an attack of nervous prostration as the result of an ear ailment. Members of the girl's family could give no motive for her act. Miss Friedrichs went to her room early Thursday night, and read until late. Early yesterday morning she wrapped h herself in a dressing gown and went to the basement and burned herself. Friedrichs said he did not believe she wished to re-enact the Knaak case, but he added that his daughter had followed newspaper accounts of that incident eagerly.