"...Worst loss of life I've ever seen," Veteran Fall River, MA, Captain Says
Boston Herald
(TNS)
Nine elderly residents died and at least 30 more were injured during a nighttime fire at a Fall River assisted living facility – the deadliest fire Massachusetts has seen in over 40 years.
“To see this up close – you can smell it right now, still hours after our tremendous teams put the fire out,” Gov. Maura Healey said outside the burnt facility around 11 a.m. “It’s horrifying to think about what happened in the middle of the night, in the dark, people just scrambling as best they could to get out through windows, the firefighters coming up ladders hauling people down in any way possible to get them out of the building, the panic. It’s so heartbreaking.”
Just after 9:30 p.m. Sunday night, Fall River Fire responded to an automatic fire alarm at Gabriel House Assisted Living Facility, said Fire Chief Jeffrey Bacon. The facility houses about 70 people, who “need help to perform daily functions, let alone to escape during an emergency situation,” the chief said.
The first crews on the scene found a “fully involved structure,” with flames coming from the front door, Bacon said.
As they arrived, the responders found “multiple victims hanging out the windows, screaming and begging for help and to be rescued,” the chief said.
‘They saved countless lives’
Quickly, Fall River Fire, Police and EMS mobilized.
“We knocked down the fire quickly, then all available assets were moved towards rescuing the individuals that needed help,” Bacon said. “And that’s not just fire; it was police. Typically, police don’t perform that function, but they did a tremendous job last night, and they saved countless lives in assisting the people that they could.”
Police said in a statement officers physically carried about “a dozen non-ambulatory residents” out. EMS triaged, treated the patients they could, and moved victims to facilities for the appropriate level of care.
Thirty-two on-duty firefighters responded Sunday night, said International Association of Firefighters General President Edward Kelly. Many more answered the call while off duty, Kelly added — when they didn’t have “adequate equipment, didn’t have breathing apparatus, didn’t have personal protective equipment, yet put their lives at risk, kicked doors in, rescued people.”
With 32 firefighters initially, some “engaged by suppression,” and about 60 people inside, there were about two rescues per firefighter, union representatives said. It took time to break windows, get ladders up, get around screwed-in air conditioners, climb in, and extricate many non-ambulatory or unconscious victims, the officials said.
‘The worst loss of live I’ve ever seen’
Coming from home forty minutes into the operation, Heavy Rescue One Captain Frank O’Regan arrived at the scene.
“To my shock, when I came in, it was still a very active fire scene, with rescue still going on,” said O’Regan, noting he would normally just be “rolling hose” at that point in an operation. “I couldn’t find any breathing apparatus, and there was really nobody on the B side of the building.”
Other responders let the captain know there were still victims trapped on the third floor.
“I went in,” said O’Regan. “I didn’t have an air tank or anything. First room, empty. Second door I kicked in, body. Next room, empty. Next room, body. I just kept yelling. Guys kept coming down. We kept dragging them out. I searched as much as I could, and then after a while, they just can’t take that much smoke.”
O’Regan, who’s set to retire next week, helped pull one more victim out as he exited.
“But there was just nobody there,” O’Regan said. “There was just nobody there. And I couldn’t believe that. After all that time, there was still a whole area with people trapped. It was, it was awful. Thirty-two years, this is the worst loss of life I’ve ever seen.”
On Monday, the captain said he was feeling “a little sick” but getting ready to hydrate and work overtime that night.
Only two of Fall River’s ten responding fire companies were staffed to national standards, four firefighters a company, Kelly said. Those eight extra on-duty firefighters missing could have made all the difference for those who died, he argued.
“Time matters,” said Kelly. “And as the exposure to the smoke, people become unconscious, (it) takes over their bodies, and unfortunately, they die if we don’t get to them in time. And that’s why time matters. That’s why we have to have adequate staffing on the apparatus responding to these fires.”
Vietnam veteran among victims
By morning, nine residents of the facility had died in the fire. About 30 more were injured, and at least some were still in the hospital Monday morning, city officials reported.
Breonna Cestodio said police called her family Monday morning to let them know her uncle Richard Rochon had died in the fire.
Rochon was in his 70s, a Vietnam veteran who served as a sharp shooter and struggled with homelessness before coming to live in the facility, Cestodio said.
“It’s another tragedy we’re trying to cope with and wrap our heads around,” said Cestodio said. “It’s hard to wrap your head around it.”
Her uncle was recently hospitalized, and the family was “never notified,” Cestodio said. At the facility, she added, there were few staff in one “closed off section.”
Cestodio said she an her family were headed to collect her uncle’s belongings and VA information Monday afternoon.
“I think if someone serves for our country, they should be taken care of before anybody else,” Cestodio said.
‘Smoke kills more people than fire ever will’
The Fall River fire is the deadliest Massachusetts has seen since 1984, when 15 people died in a Beverly rooming house.
Five firefighters had to be taken to the hospital for non-life threatening injuries and were released as of Monday morning, Healey said.
“I’m really struck by those acts of public service and and just so grateful that the teams were able to to act so quickly, so swiftly,” Healey said. “Were it not for that, we would have seen an even far more unimaginable loss of life here, given the vulnerability of this population.
“I think that’s what strikes me,” she continued. “That’s what folks need to understand. This was not the situation where teams arrived and people were able to get out easily. All of these people needed assistance. As you saw, many were in wheelchairs. Many were immobile. Many had oxygen tanks. They were severely compromised.”
The chief called the fire an “unfathomable tragedy” and reminded the community “smoke kills more people than fire ever will.”
“If there’s a lesson we can learn from this, be vigilant about smoke safety, smoke detectors and pay attention to them,” said Bacon. “They’re there for a reason. In the 1970s, thousands of people died in this country annually. And since then, since we’ve put in smoke detectors and mandated them through legislation in single family, multi-family homes, those numbers have drastically reduced, and there’s a reason for that.”
Investigation continues
Monday morning, EMS workers moved through and removed medications from the facility, before workers began boarding up the broken windows with plywood through the afternoon. Around the charred entrance, passerby could still see clear through the hollowed building Monday.
Visiting nurse Erica Medeiros, who used to work at Gabriel House, said she heard of the tragedy and came to see the damage for herself during a break in between patients Monday morning.
“For 10 years you come here, and they become like family, the employees, everyone here, just at some point, becomes family,” said Medeiros. “When I heard this, it’s devastating. It’s so devastating. The people who’ve lived here – just, I can’t even imagine how helpless they felt.”
The origin and cause of the fire are under investigation by the Department of Fire Services, authorities said. Officials said they had no new information about the cause of the fire or inspections of the building as of the last update Monday morning.
Healey announced a family notification center has been set up at the chapel of St. Anne’s Hospital nearby. Families seeking information on residents can call 508-674-5741 or use the Emergency Room entrance to access the center.
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