Charges have been filed after a nursing home fire in 2008 killed several nursing home residents.

The fire began after a resident began smoking and suddenly became unconscious. The resident was unsupervised during the incident and the cigarette then began a fire that spread throughout the entire facility and killed three of the 120 residents.

Five of the employees at the nursing home are charged with elder abuse. Investigators found that the fire was not caught early because the fire alarms had been turned off and that this was negligence of people who do the upkeep of the building. This error gave the residents no warning of the fire that was spreading around them.

Elder abuse can have devastating effects on everyone involved, our thoughts are with the elderly victims in the accident.