One dead and thirteen hospitalized due to a fire in a nursing home in l'Ametlla del Vallès
The mortal victim, a 53-year-old man, was in a room and it is believed that the door was blocked
BarcelonaA fire, now extinguished, at a nursing home in l'Ametlla del Vallès has left one man dead and 13 other people hospitalized due to smoke inhalation tonight, according to Civil Protection. The fire broke out around 10:30 PM inside the building, which has a ground floor and three stories, and affected about eighty people, including residents and staff of the center.
The Generalitat Firefighters, who activated a response with 13 units and about forty personnel, extinguished the flames in half an hour, but the fire had already affected several rooms on the first floor and smoke had also reached the second and third floors.
The residents of the nursing home "have a significant vulnerability, and this has made the management of the fire very complicated," explained the mayor of l'Ametlla del Vallès, Jan Santaló, this Wednesday on Catalunya Ràdio. Some of the residents were evacuated, while 42 were confined to their rooms.
According to Civil Protection, the fire started on the first floor for reasons still unknown, and it was in one of the rooms that the body of the victim was located. The Minister of Health, Olga Pané, indicated in statements to SER Catalunya that it was a 53-year-old man and that the door to the room "seems to have been blocked".
The Medical Emergency Service (SEM) activated 16 units and the hospitalized individuals are in a less serious condition in medical centers in Granollers, Mollet del Vallès, and Sant Celoni. With the exception of these people, the rest of the users have already been relocated to the unaffected areas of the building, located on Llerona street in L'Ametlla.
Regarding the thirteen hospitalized, the departments of Health and Social Rights and Inclusion will transfer them to other socio-sanitary and geriatric centers. The majority will have a new destination this same Wednesday, but there are two who will remain hospitalized due to respiratory problems, one of whom is in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).