Two explosions at a nursing home northeast of Philadelphia killed a resident and an employee, and injured 20 others, officials said Tuesday.
The explosions at the Bristol Health and Rehab Center in Bristol Township, Pa., also known as Silver Lake Nursing Home, resulted in a large fire and caused the building to collapse, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and other officials said at a news conference Tuesday evening.
Officials had initially said five people were missing after the explosions, but late Tuesday, Chief Charles Winik Jr. of the Bristol Police said they were all accounted for, and the rescue effort had ended. But the investigation into the episode is ongoing, Chief Winik said.
The first blast came around 2:15 p.m., and firefighters rescued people stuck in elevator shafts, stairwells and a collapsed basement, Chief Dippolito said. “There was one police officer who literally threw two people over his shoulders and ran with people to help,” he said. Residents in the area also quickly gathered at the scene to offer assistance, he added.
Shortly after the firefighters rescued the people they found, there was a second explosion, the chief said. Heavy machinery, dogs and sonar equipment are being used to continue searching the rubble.
On Tuesday evening, faint smoke still drifted over the site of the blasts and the quiet neighboring blocks of ranch-style homes. Firefighters milled on and around what remained of the nursing home building, while construction equipment idled. Evidence of the rushed evacuation remained in the surrounding area, with a wheelchair abandoned beside a tree in a front yard and hospital beds lined up in a nearby parking lot.
There were remnants of the blasts as far as several blocks away from the nursing home. Kevin Felt, 56, who lives in a house three streets up, shone a flashlight over his son’s truck, illuminating a layer of dust and debris coating the hood and roof hours after the explosions. He also pointed out a scrap of material on the front yard, which he suspected had been part of the nursing home’s roof.
The nursing home, which sits between Philadelphia and Trenton, N.J., is a for-profit operation with 174 beds in a two-story building. It offers both short and long-term care, including hospice, speech therapy and physical therapy, according to its website.
The facility has repeatedly been out of compliance with state and federal health regulations, inspection records show. It came under new management on Dec. 1, Governor Shapiro said, adding that a plan to upgrade the facility’s standards was put in place following a Dec. 10 site visit from the state health department.
Bristol Township issued a local declaration of emergency. The nursing home said in a statement that it was working with officials to determine the cause and severity of the explosion.
After the blasts, several people were taken to Lower Bucks Hospital, near the nursing home, though it was not clear how many patients it had received. Inside the hospital on Tuesday evening, survivors of the explosions lay on stretchers wearing oxygen masks, waiting to be transported on ambulances to other nearby hospitals.
St. Mary Medical Center, another hospital in Bucks County, which includes Bristol Township, received five patients from the explosion, said Jason Griffith, a spokesman for Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic, a regional health system. One person there was in critical condition, Mr. Griffith said, and three have been discharged.
Greg Wolnomiejski said he had received little information about his 86-year-old father, Walter Wolnomiejski, who was taken to Lower Bucks Hospital.
“He’s got dementia, and he’s in a wheelchair,” said Greg Wolnomiejski, who had visited his father at the nursing home on Saturday. He said his father’s room was close to a recreational center inside the building and recognized the center from images of the explosions.
Shortly after 2 p.m. on Tuesday, crews from PECO, an energy company that serves the region, responded to reports of a gas odor at the nursing home, said Greg Smore, director of communications for Exelon, PECO’s parent company. “While crews were on site, an explosion occurred at the facility,” Mr. Smore said.
The crews then shut off natural gas and electric service to the facility for the safety of emergency services, he added. It was not yet known whether the company’s equipment or gas were involved in the blasts, Mr. Smore said.
Art Viron, 49, the owner of a nearby dental practice that occasionally received patients from the nursing home, said the force of the explosion blew open the front door of his office two blocks away. When he and his staff ran outside to see what was happening, they were met by a plume of black smoke rising into the sky, he said. He watched as ambulances and police cars whisked off those who had been rescued, while employees of the nursing home embraced one another in the street.
“I saw nurses coming out, hugging each other, because I guess they did not know who survived and who did not,” he said. “That was kind of hard to see.”
For those who spent much of their Tuesday trying to reconnect with their loved ones, the wait was agonizing. Earlier in the evening, Cathleen O’Donnell, 52, from Morrisville, Pa., described herself as “sick with worry” as she tried to find out the fate of her sister, Sandra Hart, who lives at the nursing home. Ms. Hart, 57, is both brain damaged and paralyzed, Ms. O’Donnell said.
“I’ve been calling, and nobody could tell me where she was or what condition she’s in,” Ms. O’Donnell said at a local high school that was set up as a reunification center. At the high school, she was told to head to Lower Bucks Hospital to find her sister.
Ms. O’Donnell’s son, Adam O’Donnell, spent much of the evening driving around his mother in search of Ms. Hart. Eventually, they got some good news: “I’m completely ecstatic and over the moon right now because I know she’s alive,” Ms. O’Donnell said. “I’m just hoping that she’s in good condition.”
Still, Mr. O’Donnell lamented the tragedy. “At Christmas time, everyone is trying to make magic happen,” he said. “This is not magical. This is a nightmare.”
Alexandra E. Petri contributed reporting.
Chris Hippensteel is a reporter covering breaking news and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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