Death toll rises to 10 in devastating Massachusetts assisted living facility fire

CNN

3 days ago

Ten people have died after a Massachusetts assisted living facility caught fire Sunday night, making elderly residents rush to their windows to scream and beg for help as smoke filled the hallways.
The blaze at Gabriel House assisted living facility in Fall River was the deadliest fire in Massachusetts since 1984, CNN affiliate WCVB reported.
Brenda Cropper, 66, had been hospitalized in critical condition since the fire and the Bristol County District Attorney's Office announced her death Saturday, bringing the death toll up to 10.
The office initially incorrectly reported she died on Thursday, then revised the death toll to nine, calling the error a 'miscommunication.' On Saturday, the office announced Cropper had died on Friday afternoon.
The nine other victims died on Sunday night, when the fire ripped through the facility and prompted a frantic response to save lives.
'I thought I was dead,' said resident Loraine Ferrara, who was pulled Sunday night out of her bathroom window. 'I thought I was going to meet my maker.'
It was impossible to get to the exit door through the blinding smoke, Ferrara told WCVB. 'I'd never seen anything like it in my life. I couldn't breathe.'
Victims hung out windows at the three-story Gabriel House, begging to be rescued, Fall River Fire Chief Jeffrey Bacon told reporters outside the facility.
Officials with the firefighters' union later argued that understaffing may have made it harder to rescue residents and combat the fire effectively.
Seven of the victims were identified as: 64-year-old Rui Albernaz; 61-year-old Ronald Codega; 69-year-old Margaret Duddy; 78-year-old Robert King; 71-year-old Kim Mackin; 78-year-old Richard Rochon; and 86-year-old Eleanor Willett, said Bristol County District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn, III.
Two other victims — a 70-year-old woman and a 77-year-old man – were not immediately named, pending notification their next of kin.
An investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing but 'the cause does not appear to be suspicious at this time,' the district attorney said in a Monday afternoon news release. The Massachusetts State Police is assisting in the investigation into the cause of the fire.
Around 30 residents, including one in critical condition, were transported to local hospitals for treatment, according to the district attorney.
The nearest hospital, Saint Anne's, is less than a block from Gabriel House. The facility treated 15 people overnight, spokesperson Kelly Brennan told CNN. Two were transferred to Rhode Island Hospital in Providence for Level One trauma care. Four were released and nine remained hospitalized in stable condition.
Charlton Memorial Hospital, about two miles away from the assisted living facility, received 28 patients, with eight still under their care Monday afternoon, spokesperson Kaitlyn Johnson told CNN.
Five firefighters were taken from the scene with 'mostly minor injuries' and have since been released, the fire chief said.
911 calls were made from Gabriel House shortly after 9:30 p.m., according to the district attorney's news release.
'I went to my room door, I opened it, and all the smoke from the hall went right in my face. All that I could do was just stand there and choke,' resident Al Manza told CNN affiliate WCVB. 'I thought it was going to be the end of everything.'
Manza couldn't even see the hand of the police officer who guided him to safety due to the smoke.
First responders pleaded for additional help rescuing residents, many of whom were unconscious or unable to walk, according to Broadcastify audio from Sunday night.
'We need a recall. We need manpower,' one person says on the recording.
One responder requesting more medical units was told 'all medical units are currently in use, and we are trying to call for mutual aid to backfill our fire stations as well as to get some more medics.'
In some cases, firefighters had to push air conditioner units out of windows to get residents out, their union's president said.
More than 50 firefighters – including 30 who were off duty – joined the rescue effort after an automatic alarm system triggered the emergency call, Bacon said, adding, 'Every police officer in the city was here, too, and everybody was rescuing people.'
One woman spoke on the phone to her father – a resident trapped at Gabriel House – while he tried to find a way out, she said to WCVB.
'He was on the floor talking to me, and I am crying, telling him, 'Break the window. Try to break it,' because he is so weak, and he couldn't break it.'
She was able to direct firefighters to her father's location so he could be rescued, she told WCVB.
The family of Rochon, who died in the fire, said the Vietnam veteran suffered from PTSD and homelessness and often couldn't afford health care after the war.
'We as a country should take care of veterans better,' the family said in a statement to CNN. 'They have served for our country; the least we can do is make sure they live a happy healthy retirement.'
Gabriel House has been in operation since 1999, according to the state Department of Health & Social Services.
About 70 residents were living in the building at the time of the fire, the Department of Fire Services said.
The facility has 24-hour staffing, its website says, and Bacon told CNN two staff members were working overnight. Assisted living facilities in Massachusetts 'must always have sufficient staff to handle emergencies and meet resident needs as required by resident service plans,' according to the Executive Office of Aging & Independence.
Fall River Mayor Paul Coogan described the blaze as 'a tremendous tragedy' in a Monday interview with CNN.
Massachusetts State Police were on site overnight, he said, adding he was waiting for an official report on the cause of the disaster.
'It's a tragedy, no matter how it happened or what started it, but at the same time, we want to get to the bottom of this,' Coogan said.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healy visited the scene Monday morning.
'All of these people needed assistance,' Healey said at a news conference. 'As you saw, many were in wheelchairs. Many were immobile. Many had oxygen tanks. They were severely compromised.'
Michael O'Regan, president of the Fall River firefighters' union, was one of the off-duty firefighters who arrived to help battle the blaze.
'When I got here, what I saw was everyone overwhelmed,' he said at a Monday news conference. Firefighters were 'split between rescuing those that they could see, and searching for those they couldn't see, and then there were crews that were actively engaged in fire suppression.'
It took 'a significant amount of time' to extricate each resident from the building, he said. Firefighters broke through windows and used ladders to access the building.
O'Regan and several other off-duty firefighters didn't have breathing equipment to help them deal with the heavy smoke, he said. 'I didn't have time to go get the stuff, and we didn't have any extra stuff, so we did what we had to do,' he said.
His brother, fellow firefighter Frank O'Regan, arrived around 40 minutes into the incident and found some residents still trapped on the third floor, he said.
'I couldn't believe that after all this time, there was still a full area with people trapped,' he said. 'It was awful.'
It was one of the events with the 'worst loss of life' he's seen in his career, he said.
Gabriel House's owner, Dennis Etzkorn, was previously charged with running a kickback scheme and has faced lawsuits accusing him of sexually harassing employees.
The criminal charges were later dropped by prosecutors, and the lawsuits were settled out of court, according to records reviewed by CNN.
Etzkorn said he and his family were 'devastated by the tragedy,' and pledged to cooperate with authorities, he told CNN in a statement.
'Our thoughts are with every one of our residents, their families, our staff, and the brave first responders,' Etzkorn said in the statement. 'We will continue to cooperate with the authorities and provide them with any information they may need throughout the investigative process regarding the cause and origin of this fire.'
In 2012, Massachusetts prosecutors charged Etzkorn, his business, Gabriel Care, LLC, and another employee with charges related to illegally paying kickbacks to receive Medicare patients.
Etzkorn, his company, and his employee pleaded not guilty to the charges. After more than three years of court proceedings, prosecutors dropped the charges in December 2015 after a judge threw out key evidence and ruled it had been improperly obtained.
If Etzkorn had been convicted of the charges, he likely would have been banned from owning Gabriel House. According to Massachusetts regulations, owners of assisted living facilities must attest during a certification process every two years that no owner with at least 25% interest in a facility 'has ever been found in violation of any local, state or federal statute, regulation, ordinance, or other law' related to a health care facility.
Between 2003 and 2013, Etzkorn was sued in federal court at least three times by former employees who accused him of sexual harassment. Those cases were settled out of court, according to records.
Understaffing of the Fall River Fire Department was raised after the blaze by Edward Kelly, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters.
The national standard calls for four firefighters per company, Kelly said. But only two of Fall River's 10 companies meet that standard, he said. The other eight companies are operating with three firefighters each.
'Last night, had they been staffed properly, up to national standards, there would have been eight more firefighters effecting rescues here last night,' Kelly said. 'There's no doubt that would have made a difference in the amount of people that we lost to this terrible fire last night, lives would have been saved.'
Bacon confirmed staffing was 'a fight we've been having in this city for generations.'
'We'd love to have four on every apparatus,' the fire chief told CNN. Fall River hasn't had four firefighters per apparatus since the 1980s or '90s, according to Bacon, who said it's 'always the goal to get back to that number.'
At the peak of the response, there were around 65 firefighters at the scene, Bacon said.
Coogan, the mayor, allocated firefighters to the department based on recommendations from the chief, he told CNN. The department has 140 firefighters in total, he said.
Michael O'Regan said, 'We did the best we could with what we had – and what we had was not enough.'
This story has been updated with additional information. The Bristol County District Attorney's Office incorrectly stated the number of people who died in the fire. It was nine.
CNN's Jason Carroll, Sarah Boxer, Jillian Sykes, Casey Tolan, Isabelle Chapman and Majlie de Puy Kamp contributed to this report.
Correction:
A previous version of this story misspelled Al Manza's name; it also misstated the location of Charlton Memorial Hospital.