A woman in her mid-90s died today after a fire broke out in a nursing home.
The Lakes Nursing Home in Killaloe, Co Clare, was evacuated when a blaze was discovered in a resident’s room shortly after midnight.
The woman - who is understood to have received her last rites just hours before the incident - died as people were being escorted from the building. She is not thought to have been near the scene of the first-floor fire.
Firefighters confined the flames to one room, and staff and residents were allowed back inside shortly afterwards.
Gardaí were carrying out a technical examination at the home to establish the cause of the fire.
The victim’s body was taken to the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick for a postmortem.
The man in whose room the blaze broke out was taken to hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation.
A spokesman for the 57-bed nursing home said the staff’s sympathies were with the families of both residents. “This could have been a lot worse, but thankfully the systems that are in place in the hospital immediately detected the fire and the emergency services also acted very quickly,” he said.
“The Health Information and Quality Authority has been informed, and the home will co-operate fully with any investigations that are implemented.”
PA