TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — While a restless nation slept in thehours after the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy, flames torethrough a nursing home in rural northern Ohio, killing 63 people
in whatremains one of the worst such fires in U.S. history.Many victimshad been restrained to their beds
or trapped behind wheelchairs thatwere too wide for the exits. Investigators later blamed faulty
wiringand found the nursing home didn’t have an evacuation plan.Overshadowedby the shooting in Dallas 50
years ago and largely forgotten today, thedeadly fire along with a string of other nursing home fires in
the1960s helped bring about better federal and state oversight and uniformsafety rules for the
industry.Until then, inspections andregulations left to the states were inconsistent, and there were
norequirements for sprinklers, fire drills or safety plans.Theresult was a series of multiple-death
nursing home fires that killed anaverage of 15 people per year during the 1960s and early 1970s, said
TomJaeger, of Great Falls, Va., a longtime consultant to the nursing homeindustry.Now, with stricter
safety codes and sprinklers in nearlyevery nursing home, the number killed in multiple-death nursing
homefires is less than two each year, Jaeger said.The industry hasmade great strides in reducing those
fires, but health experts andregulators warned just this year that many nursing homes areill-prepared
for natural disasters after examining responses toSuperstorm Sandy and Hurricane Katrina.Some of the
warnings beingsounded today about evacuation plans are similar to the complaints thatcame up after the
fire on Nov. 23, 1963, that killed all but 21 of theresidents at the Golden Age Nursing Home in
Fitchville, a villagebetween Toledo and Cleveland.The fire began just before 5 a.m. inthe attic of the
one-story building, burned through the phone lines andspread before anyone knew what was happening. By
the time firefightersarrived 10 minutes later, the building was burning from one end to
theother.Passers-by and employees managed to get a few residentsout. Steve Pierce said his father went
in four or five times before theroof collapsed."I remember his clothes smelled so bad I think mom
said she had to bury them," said Pierce, who still lives nearby.JerryEarl, who was 18 at the time,
said the flames were shooting through theroof when he arrived with his father, a fire chief in a
neighboringvillage."The heat was so intense it melted a glass-block window into one big
teardrop," he said.Earl said he found one of exits blocked by a wheelchair with a charred mass
behind it.Investigatorssaid some of the victims died steps away from exits, adding that thelarge loss of
life was caused by the lack of a plan for promptevacuation.Many of those who died suffered from dementia
and were wards of the state and not from the area.HenryTimman, a local historian in nearby Norwalk,
remembered hearing aboutthe fire on the radio amid coverage of Kennedy’s assassination. "Youwere
just stunned at all that was happening," he said.Even though the fire was so close to home, almost
all thoughts remained focused on Kennedy, he said."Wekind of put the nursing home aside until the
president’s funeral,"Timman said. "It was overshadowed in a way, but its effects
werefar-reaching."Ohio’s governor’s ordered beefed up inspections ofwiring in nursing homes. State
lawmakers later established regulationsthat required sprinklers, fire exits and extinguishers while also
givingthe state more authority over nursing homes.Congress institutednew safety codes that went into
effect in 1970 and spelled out rules forbuilding construction and fire safety. But it wasn’t until this
yearthat all nursing homes were required to have automatic sprinklers ifthey wanted to qualify for
Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements.Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rightsreserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten orredistributed.
