Crews dig into Pennsylvania nursing home rubble to see if a gas leak caused deadly blast

BRISTOL, Pennsylvania — Construction crews worked Wednesday to clear the collapsed walls and roof of a Pennsylvania nursing home to help investigators find the cause of the explosion that killed a resident and an employee, and triggered a dramatic evacuation amid falling debris and shooting flames.

Tuesday afternoon’s explosion sent 20 other people to hospitals, including one person in critical condition. The rest of the employees and 120 residents were found after hours of searching the wreckage, Bristol Township Police Chief Charles Winik said.

The survivors were transferred to nearby nursing homes, the police chief and health officials said.

The Bucks County Coroner’s Office said the employee who died was 52-year-old Muthoni Nduthu. Authorities did not immediately identify the resident who died. Both victims were women.

Officials said they do not yet know the cause of the explosion at Bristol Health & Rehab Center, although a utility crew was on site investigating a reported gas leak when the explosion occurred. It was so powerful that it shook neighboring houses for several blocks in Bristol, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northeast of Philadelphia.

A wing of the facility which housed the kitchen and cafeteria was almost completely destroyed, with the roof collapsed, sections of walls completely missing and windows from adjacent walls torn out. Debris littered the ground.

Winik said the scale of the casualties could have been much worse. Police and firefighters poured in from the area, while staff from a nearby hospital and neighbors rushed to help evacuate the injured. One person was resuscitated at a hospital, authorities said.

Firefighters braved a strong smell of gas, flames, collapsed walls and even a second explosion to rescue people trapped on stairs and elevator shafts and under rubble, authorities said.

“I have never seen such heroism,” Winik told reporters Wednesday. “They were rushing towards a building from which I could still smell, from a distance of 15 meters, the smell of gas and walls that seemed about to collapse.”

Some residents could not walk or talk, and some were in wheelchairs, the police chief said.

Nineteen people were still hospitalized Wednesday, Winik said. Federal agencies were expected to assist in the investigation as crews removed the wreckage.

“Until we excavate the area and remove the walls and roof that collapsed, we will have no idea what may have happened there,” Winik said.

The explosion at the 174-bed nursing home occurred shortly after a utility crew responded to reports of the smell of gas at the facility, authorities said. The local gas utility, PECO, said the crew shut off natural gas and electric service to the facility, but did not know whether the utility’s equipment or gas was involved in the explosion.

Willie Tye, who lives about a block away, said he was watching a basketball game when he heard a loud boom.

“I thought a plane or something had come and fallen on my house,” he said. When he came out, he saw “fire everywhere” and people fleeing the building.

State records show the facility was cited for multiple violations during its last inspection in October by the Pennsylvania Department of Health, including failing to provide accurate floor plans and properly maintaining stairs and fire extinguishers on a single level. Inspectors also cited the facility for lacking required smoke partitions designed to contain smoke through floors.

The facility’s overall Medicare rating is “much below average,” with poor ratings for health inspections in particular.

Musuline Watson, who said she was a certified nursing assistant at the facility, told WPVI-TV that staff smelled gas over the weekend, but did not initially suspect a serious problem because there was no heat in that room.

The nursing home recently affiliated with Ohio-based Saber Healthcare Group, which called the explosion “devastating” and said in a statement that staff at the facility quickly reported the gas smell to the local gas utility before the explosion.

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Levy and Scolforo reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Associated Press journalists Mingson Lau in Bristol, Pennsylvania; Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire and Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report.