Brentwood nursing home residents treated for smoke inhalation after fire

Two residents of a Brentwood nursing home were treated at a  hospital for smoke inhalation after an oxygen machine caught fire, according to the Suffolk County Police Department.

An "oxygen supply concentrator" in a resident's room at Maria Regina Rehabilitation and Nursing on Brentwood Road caused a fire to breakout shortly before 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday, a police spokesperson told Newsday.

Nursing home staffers "quickly extinguished" the blaze, but two residents, 92 and 94 years old, were transported to South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore for treatment of smoke inhalation. 

Four Suffolk police officers were treated for smoke inhalation at Good Samaritan University Hospital in West Islip, the agency said.

Police said the fire is not considered suspicious.

Maria Regina did not immediately respond to Newsday's request for comment on the fire. The 188-bed facility is one of more than a dozen Long Island nursing homes to earn a golden trophy from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in recent months, qualifying them for a less rigorous and more "streamlined" inspection under the new nationwide "risk-based survey" process.

To qualify, nursing homes must have a five-star rating from CMS, have at least a three-star staffing rating, have received a standard survey during the previous 18 months and cannot have received a citation during their most recent inspection for "actual harm," "immediate jeopardy" or "substandard quality of care."

Newsday reported last year that Maria Regina was fined $10,000 by the state  Health Department and another $8,512 by CMS after a resident with dementia was found on Dec. 19, 2023, sitting in their reclining wheelchair drinking from a brown bottle labeled Wella ColorCharm blond hair dye, according to state inspectors.

The hair coloring box had been left unattended at the nurses station by an aide after another resident did not show up to a beauty parlor appointment, inspectors wrote.

A nursing supervisor found the resident’s tongue and lips swollen and a doctor immediately administered steroids, records show. The resident was taken to South Shore University Hospital for treatment.