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.

Flames roared through an assisted-living residence in Massachusetts, killing nine people, injuring 30 others and trapping residents inside.

A former employee said she never saw the staff perform fire drills. The local fire chief pushed back at claims that dispatching more firefighters would’ve saved more lives.

More than 75 percent of Gabriel House residents are enrolled in Medicaid, state officials have said, and it charges significantly less than a typical assisted living facility does for private-paying patients.

A Massachusetts native, Willett spent more than 20 years as a secretary and even worked briefly as a cocktail waitress, her granddaughter said. Her home was always a base for everyone in her family, Mallowes said.