Four survivors of Bristol nursing home explosion sue facility’s operator, PECO for negligence

A lawsuit filed Monday accuses Saber Healthcare Group and PECO, the facility’s natural gas supplier, of failing to address a gas leak that allegedly caused the explosion. The suit was filed on behalf of four survivors: former resident Barbara Sall, whose wheelchair was destroyed in the fire, IT contractor James Broderick and facility aides Stacy Ballard and Davidetta Blay. They each received medical treatment for “physical and emotional injuries,” the lawsuit says.  

MORE: SEPTA completes trolley tunnel repairs, targets mid-January reopening

An explosion at the nursing home on Dec. 23 caused part of the building to collapse, trapping people inside the stairwells and elevator shafts. A second blast occurred amid the rescue efforts. Two people died that day and another 20 were injured. A third person, a 66-year-old woman named Patricia Mero, died of her injuries Monday, NBC10 reported. The other people who died were Muthoni Nduthu, a 52-year-old nurse, and a resident whose name has not been released.

Investigators have not determined the cause of the explosion. PECO was on site that day to investigate a gas leak, and some residents had been complaining about a gas smell for days, the Inquirer reported.

Despite the strong odor of gas, the lawsuit claims PECO failed to identify and repair the leak in time and the facility’s leadership did not call for a building evacuation. The lawsuit also accuses Saber Healthcare and the building’s former owner of neglecting to ensure adequate safety measures were in place. 

Saber HealthCare took over the facility on Dec. 1. A state inspection report from October shows the nursing home’s stairways were not properly maintained, its portable fire extinguishers were outdated and the building lacked smoke barrier partitions. The building also did not have an accurate floor plan, the report says. 

The lawsuit was filed by Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

“Our pre-suit investigation left no doubt that the defendants were responsible for this foreseeable and preventable tragedy just before Christmas,” attorney Robert Mongeluzzi said in a statement. “We will prove that there were failures in staffing, training and supervision, that basic facility life safety training protocols were blatantly ignored or compromised, that the site was not immediately evacuated after several reports of noxious onsite gas-leak odors long before the explosion and that innocent lives — of residents, workers, and visitors including contractors — were callously put at risk.”

PECO declined to comment on the accusations in the lawsuit. “We are a party to the National Transportation Safety Board investigation,” the company said in a statement. “We are fully cooperating with the NTSB and according to the NTSB rules, we are not permitted to comment on this matter.”

Saber HealthCare issued the following statement: “At this time, we are cooperating with the ongoing investigation at Bristol, and we do not comment on pending litigation.”