A dozen nursing home residents displaced in an overnight fire Sunday at the Campbell Hall Rehabilitation Center are now back at the facility.
The owner, Jerry Wood, tells News 12 that the residents who were impacted returned late Sunday afternoon and will be housed in an unaffected portion of the facility. Wood says seven resident rooms, the kitchen and the meeting room were damaged – mostly by smoke and water during the firefighting efforts.
“Thank God no residents or employees were injured during the situation and yesterday around 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning, we started gutting the areas that were affected,” says Wood.
County fire officials say the fire started in a heating and cooling unit in the meeting room after an electrical malfunction, which caused heavy smoke conditions in a first-floor wing of the facility.
So far, it’s not clear if any violations will be issued because of the fire.
“Every nursing home gets citations. If a door doesn’t close properly, you get a citation for it because the hinges are loose or whatever the case may be,” says Wood. “Those things are all fixed immediately, and you go on.”
News 12 has calls out to state and local officials for more information.
Wood says repairs at the facility are expected to take two to three weeks to fully complete. Wood also says all of the building’s HVAC units were immediately inspected following the fire and determined to be safe.