After fatal Anchorage fire, officials advise bedridden residents to consider living on ground floor

Officials say no state or local regulation was in place that could have prevented the death of a bedridden woman who lived up a flight of stairs in the wooden Spenard apartment complex destroyed by fire on Feb. 15.

A person with the capacity to make his or her own decisions and who is able to reach out for help can choose to live anywhere, state officials said. Even if the person is bedridden, no rules exist to accommodate a lack of mobility.

"People have the right to make a decision that may not be a good decision," said Duane Mayes, director of the Senior and Disabilities Services division of the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. "But if they have the capacity to do so, we leave that up to them; we have to honor that."

Vivian Hall, 63, died inside her apartment — unit 201 — as a direct result of the fire, said Anchorage Police Department spokeswoman Renee Oistad. She's one of two people who have died as a result of the blaze at the Royal Suite Apartments.

The fire code too doesn't have any special provisions aimed at making sure someone with mobility issues could get out in a situation like a big fire.

Officials with the city and the Anchorage Fire Department said that someone who is bedridden or otherwise compromised might want to look for apartments they can get out of easily.

"It would be the responsibility of that person to ensure they were renting an apartment they could get out from by themselves," said Fire Marshal Cleo Hill. "When I talk to folks that are mobility-impaired, I try to bring that to their attention — to find a facility that they don't have to be rescued from. … Maybe the second floor might not be the safest exit path for them."

[2 dozen federal agents investigate cause of fatal Anchorage apartment fire]

No one has said why Hall was bedridden.

The building that caught fire was built in 1977, before the passage of the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, with its strict access requirements. Hill said that while structures built today need to comply with the ADA, that would just ensure that a person with a disability would be able to reach the second floor in a normal situation.

"You'd still have the responsibility yourself to get from the apartment to the exit path," Hill said.

It wouldn't necessarily mean anything for special requirements within the apartment, she said.

"Sometimes we hear from the community saying, 'Well, this person made a decision that's not good for them,'" said Mayes, the state official. "If we started getting into that, we would be inundated with those types of things. … Freedom of choice, whether it's good or bad, is more important than safety."

There are no specific code requirements for disabled people living on their own in an apartment, said Kent Kohlhase, acting building official in the city's Development Services Department.

"If somebody is in a situation like this, generally being on the ground floor is probably safer," Kohlhase said.

[Alarm system at fire-destroyed building was up to code, city says]

The fire department used to have a system where people could notify dispatchers of specific mobility or health issues so if crews were sent there, they'd already have some health information about the resident. But Hill said that as Anchorage has grown, that system has been tossed out.

"It was overwhelming with all the notes people wanted us to make with dispatching, so we've actually stopped that," she said. She's not sure when the system ended.

But that system didn't mean that crews sent out to a large building fire would go to the apartment of someone with health issues first. 

"We treat everyone the same," Hill said. 

Instead, it was meant to provide background to responders when they were sent to a residence.

Some people in last week's fire, including another who died, leaped from second- and third-story windows to get out of the apartment building. Generally, a multi-story, multifamily building is required to have at least two routes out to safety, Kohlhase said. The Royal Suite Apartments had them, but last week, the fire made both stairways inaccessible, he said.

['The fire was above our heads': Survivors recount frantic escape from apartments]

Police had a hard time finding Hall's next of kin but Oistad said Thursday they had located a sibling. A former caregiver of Hall's, Ruby Becker, said Hall was adopted and from Ohio. Becker said a woman named Laura Kramer was Hall's roommate at Royal Suite Apartments. People who commented on a post about Hall on Facebook also said a woman named Laura was her roommate.

Kramer, 70, is in critical condition at the burn intensive care unit at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, spokeswoman Susan Gregg said. Kramer has been in the ICU since the day of the fire, Gregg said.