By Charlie McKenna
masslive.com
FALL RIVER, Mass. — A former resident of the Gabriel House assisted living facility in Fall River filed a lawsuit Monday against the facility’s owner and the company responsible for its fire safety systems, claiming negligence.
Alvaro Vieira is at least the fifth former resident to file suit since the July 13 fire that killed 10 people and injured dozens. Along with Vieira, Steven Oldrid, Patricia Martin, Terry Young and Donna Murphey have all sued the facility and its owner, Dennis Etzkorn. Vieira’s lawsuit also names Fire Systems Inc., the third-party that inspected fire safety systems at the facility, as a defendant.
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All three lawsuits were filed in Bristol Superior Court.
The 64-year-old Vieira was hospitalized after the fire due to smoke inhalation and with glass fragments in his face from a firefighter rescuing him through a window. After being released from the hospital, Vieira was moved to the Royal Fairhaven Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, a nursing home by the shore in Fairhaven.
Officials have said the deadly blaze was caused by either the failure of an oxygen purifier or improper disposal of smoking materials. While the cause is undetermined, it is undisputed that the oxygen in the building contributed to the scale of the tragedy.
“There’s truly no safe way to smoke, but smoking is especially dangerous when home oxygen is in use,” State Fire Marshal Jon M. Davine said at a press conference last week. “No one should smoke around medical oxygen.”
Fire officials have not disclosed the exact unit where the fire broke out, but said it erupted in a second-story room on the east side of the east wing of the U-shaped building. The resident whose room the fire broke out in was among the 10 killed.
The most recent suit claims the defendants, including Etzkorn, knew or should have known that residents were smoking in their rooms, despite a non-smoking policy in the building.
“Defendants were required to advise, discuss, inform, counsel, protect, and warn residents receiving care from dangerous conditions on the Property, including fire and safety hazards,” the lawsuit reads.
A spokesperson for Etzkorn did not immediately return a request for comment on the claims in the lawsuit. In his last public statement, Etzkorn said, “my sole concerns, and all that matters right now, are helping investigators determine all the facts and circumstances of this tragedy, and helping our residents’ loved ones in this unbearable time of immense grief.
The lawsuit also claims the facility lacked an emergency preparedness plan, despite one being required by law. Multiple residents and staff members have told MassLive they never participated in any fire drills at the facility.
Residents did not have “early warning of fire and impending danger” from smoke detectors or fire alarms in the building and thus did not have an opportunity for “early intervention,” the suit claims.
“The equipment installed, inspected, maintained, and certified by Fire Systems failed to provide reasonable notice and warning of the subject fire,” the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit demands a jury trial on all 11 counts, and claims Vieira sustained damages in the form of “physical injuries, emotional and mental anguish and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, economic losses, past, present, and future medical expenses, past, present, and future pain and suffering, property damage and loss of use of property.”
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