A thunderous explosion at a Bucks County nursing home collapsed part of the building, sent flames shooting out and left people injured and trapped inside, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said in a news conference several hours after the explosion that at least two had been killed.<\/p>\n
The explosion happened at Bristol Health & Rehab Center in Bristol Township, just as a utility crew had been on site looking for a gas leak, although the cause of the explosion was unclear several hours later, as was the extent of the casualties.<\/p>\n
A plume of black smoke rose from the nursing home, as emergency responders, fire trucks and ambulances from across the region rushed there, joined by earthmoving equipment.<\/p>\n
Bucks County emergency management officials said they received the report of an explosion approximately 2:17 p.m. and said a portion of the building was reported to have collapsed. Ruth Miller, a Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency spokesperson, said her agency had been informed that people were trapped inside.<\/p>\n
Willie Tye, who lives about a block away, said he was sitting at home watching a basketball game on TV when he heard a \u201cloud kaboom.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought an airplane or something came and fell on my house,\u201d Tye said.<\/p>\n
He got up to go look and saw \u201cfire everywhere\u201d and people escaping the building. The explosion looked like it happened in the kitchen area of the nursing home, he said. Tye said some of the people who live or work there didn\u2019t make it out.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust got to keep praying for them,\u201d Tye said.<\/p>\n
The cause of the explosion was unclear.<\/p>\n
The local gas utility, PECO, said its crews had responded to reports of a gas odor at the nursing home shortly after 2 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile crews were on site, an explosion occurred at the facility. PECO crews shut off natural gas and electric service to the facility to ensure the safety of first responders and local residents,\u201d the utility said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Nils Hagen-Frederiksen, press secretary at the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, said investigators from the safety division were headed to the scene.<\/p>\n
Hagen-Frederiksen said first responders and emergency management officials were describing it as a gas explosion, but that won\u2019t be confirmed until his agency can examine the scene up close.<\/p>\n
Musuline Watson, who said she was a certified nursing assistant the facility, told WPVI-TV\/ABC 6 that, over the weekend, she and others there smelled gas, but \u201cthere was no heat in the room, so we didn\u2019t take it to be anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 174-bed nursing home is about 20 miles northeast of Philadelphia. Its owner, Saber Healthcare Group, said it was working with local emergency authorities. The facility had been known until recently as Silver Lake Healthcare Center.<\/p>\n
The latest state inspection report for the facility was in October and the Pennsylvania Department of Health found that it was not in compliance with several state regulations.<\/p>\n
The inspection report said the facility failed to provide an accurate set of floor plans and to properly maintain several stairways, including storing multiple paint buckets and a bed frame under landings.<\/p>\n
It also said the facility failed to maintain portable fire extinguishers on one of the three levels and failed to provide the required \u201csmoke barrier partitions,\u201d which are designed to contain smoke on two floors. It also said it didn\u2019t properly store oxygen cylinders on two of three floors.<\/p>\n
According to Medicare.gov, the facility underwent a standard fire safety inspection in September 2024, during which no citations were issued. But Medicare\u2019s overall rating of the facility is listed as \u201cmuch below average,\u201d with poor ratings for health inspections in particular.<\/p>\n
Associated Press reporter Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., and Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report. Levy and Scolforo reported from Harrisburg.<\/p>\n
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A thunderous explosion at a Bucks County nursing home collapsed part of the building, sent flames shooting out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[10923,197,202,182,139,28,29,69,71,70,432],"class_list":{"0":"post-69048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-bristol-township","9":"tag-bucks-county","10":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-pennsylvania-news","15":"tag-philadelphia","16":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","17":"tag-philadelphia-news","18":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}