Elderly residents – some in wheelchairs and some dependent on oxygen tanks – were blinded by deadly smoke as they tried to escape an assisted-living facility in Fall River, Massachusetts, which caught fire Sunday evening.

Mice, cockroaches and beds without sheets were a part of life at the Gabriel House in Fall River, according to a current employee, long before Sunday’s fire that killed nine residents and injured 30 at the assisted living facility.

The Gabriel House assisted living facility did not perform fire drills or train workers in evacuation procedures and was also understaffed and poorly maintained, according to a current and former employee interviewed in the aftermath of the fatal fire there that killed nine residents.

A deadly fire tore through an assisted living facility in Fall River, Massachusetts, on Sunday night, July 13. The Fall River Fire Department said the fire caused multiple injuries and fatalities at the Gabriel House home on Oliver Street, ABC6 reported.