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
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BarcelonaA fire, now extinguished, at a nursing home in l'Ametlla del Vallès has left one man dead tonight and 13 other people hospitalized due to smoke inhalation, according to Civil Protection. The fire broke out around 10:30 p.m. inside the building, which consists of a ground floor and three stories, and affected about eighty people, including residents and staff of the center.
The Generalitat Fire Department, which activated a response team 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 the smoke had also reached the second and third floors.
The residents of the nursing home "have significant vulnerability, and this has made managing the fire very complicated," the mayor of l'Ametlla del Vallès, Jan Santaló, explained 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 less serious condition at medical centers in Granollers, Mollet del Vallès, and Sant Celoni. With the exception of these people, the rest of the residents have already been relocated to unaffected areas of the building, located on Llerona Street in l'Ametlla.
Regarding the thirteen admitted patients, the Departments of Health and Social Rights and Inclusion will transfer them to other social-health and geriatric facilities. Most will have a new destination this same Wednesday, but two will remain hospitalized due to respiratory problems, one of whom is in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
