Days after Bristol nursing home explosion, residents are left in unfamiliar new locations without clothes, possessions, and medications

First, Danielle Delange saw the news alert: Bristol Health & Rehab, the nursing home where her mother lived, was on fire.

Within minutes, Delange got a phone call from an unfamiliar number. On the line, she heard her 64-year-old mother’s trembling voice.

“My mom said there was a gas explosion,” Delange said. “And I said, ‘How do you know it was a gas explosion?’ And she said, ‘Because we’d been smelling gas.’ … And I said, ‘Today?’ And she said, ‘No, for a couple days.’”

Her mother, Anna Grauber, who uses a wheelchair, was evacuated from the burning building soon after Tuesday’s devastating blast, which killed a nurse and a resident and injured 20 people. The cause of the explosion remains under investigation.

According to Delange, in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, her mother was outside, and she was starting to get uncomfortably cold.

Delange said her mother, who lives with COPD and emphysema, didn’t have the oxygen that she needs and was struggling to breathe. Even her emergency inhaler was back in her room.

Delange’s mother is one of the 119 residents who had to be relocated from the healthcare facility in Bristol Township, Bucks County, to other care homes across the region. With the facility now the scene of a federal investigation, Grauber and other residents are left without their possessions and, according to several families, they lack even basic necessities like clothes and phone chargers.

The company that runs the nursing home, Saber Healthcare Group, says it’s doing all it can while it waits for the National Transportation Safety Board to determine whether people can safely return to the nursing home building at 905 Tower Rd.

But family members of residents, such as Delange, are questioning whether that’s enough.

Delange said her mother was promptly moved to another Saber Healthcare Group property, Statesman Health & Rehabilitation Center, a short drive away in Levittown. However, her mother had to go several days without one of her medications, Delange said, and was struggling to adjust.

Delange said that when she visited her mother on Friday at her new home in Levittown, her mother was wearing men’s basketball shorts and a T-shirt. She said that Saber has not provided clothes for the relocated residents, and so staff have resorted to pulling clothes from a donation box.

“She doesn’t have pants,” Delange said. “And that got me thinking, like, what did my mom have on when she left there?”

Zachary Shamberg, Saber’s chief of government affairs, said the company is doing everything it can to help the displaced residents — but right now, nobody is allowed in the Bristol facility.

Possibly as early as Monday, Saber may be cleared to reenter the building, Shamberg said. “We’ll survey the damage, we’ll see what can be salvaged, and we’ll get in touch with families to ensure any items were returned.”

Saber’s insurance company would likely handle replacement or compensation for items destroyed in the blaze, he said.

As far as he knows, Shamberg said, the company is not providing money or purchasing new clothes or essential items for residents. He encouraged residents’ families to contact leadership at the Bristol facility if they need anything.

» READ MORE: With the smoke cleared, key questions emerge in the wake of a deadly nursing home blast

Shamberg said many residents have been moved to other Saber-affiliated nursing homes in the area, and these residents would promptly get prescriptions refilled. In addition, the company has started working with Medicare and Medicaid to replace residents’ dentures and eyeglasses. However, because some Saber locations are full, people have been placed in other facilities.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, Shamberg said, the goal was to get people “to the best care setting as quickly as possible.” He added the company tried to keep residents as close as possible to their families.

“The focus, initially on Tuesday, was to make sure staff and residents were safe,” Shamberg said. “Now, we survey the damage. We assess the facility. And we decide what happens next in terms of rebuilding and moving forward.”

Saber staff at Bristol are being paid for the next 30 days regardless of whether they work, Shamberg said, and the company is offering them positions at other locations. Some staff, such as care coordinators and facility leadership, have remained in close contact with residents’ families, he said.

Saber, a privately run for-profit company, acquired the Bristol nursing home from Ohio-based CommuniCare Health Services barely three weeks before the explosion. Under CommuniCare, the nursing home had received numerous citations for unsafe building conditions and substandard care.

Saber was aware of these issues, Shamberg said. However, he said, as the company took over, there was no indication of problems with its gas lines.

“When you acquire a nursing home, you inherit that nursing home’s survey history,” Shamberg said. “Even looking at the most recent survey, the October 30th survey, there’s nothing that indicated a potential gas leak or explosion.”

Bristol had not been the first choice for 49-year-old Lisa Harnick and her family when it came time to find a nursing home for her mother, Debra Harnick. However, since Lisa Harnick didn’t have a car, the family opted for a choice close to her home in Bristol Township.

Now, Lisa Harnick’s 77-year-old mother is about an hour away at York Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Philadelphia, she said. (The facility is not part of Saber Healthcare Group.) And their weekly lunch date is on hold.

“We started going over every Tuesday to have lunch with her, and visit with her, and now I can’t do that,” Lisa Harnick said.

Debra Harnick is “completely bed-bound,” her daughter said, and has no possessions except for her iPad, which she uses to communicate with family. She does not have a cognitive impairment, is alert, and is not happy about her new situation, Lisa Harnick said.

She added that Saber has remained in touch.

“I’ve been in contact with the social worker, and the activities director,” she said. “And I’ve been in contact with the insurance company, too. They just wanted to verify that she was there.”