Fire at Hospital in Brazil Kills 11 People, Many Elderly

A fire raced through a hospital in Rio de Janeiro, forcing staff to wheel patients into the streets on stretchers or in wheelchairs and killing at least 11 people, many of them elderly.

Four firefighters were hospitalized after battling the overnight blaze at Badim Hospital and about 90 patients were transferred to other hospitals, the fire department said. A rope made from bedsheets and used in an attempt to escape the fire still hung from an upper floor window of the hospital Friday.

Most victims died of asphyxiation as smoke filled the wards, and some died when life support equipment stopped working in the fire, said Gabriela Graça, director of the state Institute of Forensic Medicine. When firefighters arrived, they evacuated people but it was more difficult to move patients who were hooked up to medical equipment, according to reports.

Authorities released a list of names of 10 of the dead, some in their 80s and 90s.

Badim Hospital is part of a chain of private hospitals in Brazil operated by the D'Or São Luiz network. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is currently in the care of the same group at another of its hospitals in Sao Paulo, where he is recovering from a surgery related to a stabbing last year.

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