Tragic fire in Quebec (condo, house, upkeep)

[Mouldy Old Schmo]

For the second time in less than a year, a fire with a potentially high loss of life happens in Quebec.

BBC News - Deadly fire at L'Isle-Verte home for the elderly

[jambo101]

Tragic..

[Natnasci]

Very sad.

[GTOlover]

Yeah but why the heck did half the building not even have mandatory sprinkler systems in a place like that?.

I mean it might of been preventable or atleast slowed down the blaze and gave the Fire department and other First responders more time to rescue people from the blaze and been able to get more people out to safety .

Plus I believe based on what CBC has been reporting there was only 2 staff members working when the fire broke out and that most of the people need help to get out of beds as well be put into wheel chairs or needed walkers to get out.

So it seems that it was also severely understaffed which also contributed to not getting more people out to safety ASAP and well it is just a sad story all tragic around.

[BruSan]

Originally Posted by GTOlover

Yeah but why the heck did half the building not even have mandatory sprinkler systems in a place like that?.

I mean it might of been preventable or atleast slowed down the blaze and gave the Fire department and other First responders more time to rescue people from the blaze and been able to get more people out to safety .

Plus I believe based on what CBC has been reporting there was only 2 staff members working when the fire broke out and that most of the people need help to get out of beds as well be put into wheel chairs or needed walkers to get out.

So it seems that it was also severely understaffed which also contributed to not getting more people out to safety ASAP and well it is just a sad story all tragic around.

I agree totally. It is however endemic across Canada that our seniors are warehoused in sometimes appalling conditions.

As a member of an aging demographic of boomers I cannot for the life of me understand why a business model has not evolved to a higher degree to provide the basic amenities with trained staff. It should, after all is considered, be the law.

My wife and I were of the normal thought process of selling our home and moving into a condo and from there at a later age into an assisted care facility to live out our days but we are now of a mindset to stay in the house and pay for it's upkeep while having a live-in caregiver attend to our needs we cannot maintain ourselves.

I've almost come to the conclusion that it's a crap shoot on how you're going to be treated in one of these facilities regardless of the resort-like appearance of them.

Visiting aging friends in these places has been a real eye opener.

[Zoisite]

What a horrific and heart breaking job the workers are going through now to retrieve the bodies. What's left of the building is encased in ice and they're having to use steam-cleaning equipment normally used for de-icing ships to melt the ice to try to locate and release the bodies that are frozen in the ice. Such a sad situation.

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