OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — FOX4 is still working for you to get answers about ongoing issues at the Overland Park luxury apartment complex where around 100 people have reportedly been without air conditioning this summer.
Sadly, it’s no longer an issue for one resident who died waiting on that air conditioning fix.
The father, grandfather and great-grandfather was on oxygen after a recent surgery. But his daughter says his health wasn’t taken into consideration as the 76-year-old U.S. Army veteran waited for air conditioning.
Deanna Cox went to the office at The Lakes at Lionsgate Luxury Apartments in mid-May when it started to get warmer and her father realized his apartment didn’t have properly working air conditioning.
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“Every time I would come here there was a bunch of people in there waiting to talk to someone and every single one of them was complaining about some sort of maintenance issue,” Cox said, echoing the voices of several residents who spoke to FOX4 this week about a backup for air conditioning repair.
“They did say there are 106 units out I said I understand that but he is a special situation,” she said.
A week and a half went by, and Cox said no one came to fix it, despite her several trips to the office. Multiple residents have told us no one answers the phone, so he made a trip to the office himself.
“He actually made her promise that he would fix his air and she did,” Cox said of her dad’s interaction with a Lakes at Lionsgate leasing agent.
“She promised and we didn’t hear a word from her and that was a week before it happened,” Cox said of her dad’s interaction with a Lakes at Lionsgate leasing agent.
Wednesday, June 5, saw temperatures in the mid-80s. That day, Cox got a call from her dad.
“He said they hadn’t come and he was very concerned that it was so warm in here,” she recalled.
When she got to the apartment she found him with a heart rate of 155 and called 911. He went to the hospital where he died two days later. Cox says it was from breathing complications.
As she cleans out his apartment, Cox now is left to wonder if the lack of air conditioning impacted her dad’s health. We went to Centerpoint Medical Center which didn’t treat the 76-year-old, and where physicians aren’t privy to his medical history. But E.R. doctors have been treating other patients for heat-related illness this week.
“The body is naturally going to try to release heat by ways increasing heart rate, increasing breathing rate, increasing sweating as your body becomes overwhelmed and is unable to keep up with the temperature,” E.R. Physician Dr. Jeremy Robertson described.
He also says certain populations are at greater risk during heat.
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“Anybody who has breathing problems or medical problems that lead to them being on oxygen or comorbidities they also are going to be on medication as well that make them more vulnerable,” he said.
Cox says she contacted FOX4 in hopes others like those she saw with young children living without air conditioning or awaiting major maintenance repairs will get assistance.
“I do believe that he would still be here,” Cox said.
“There’s no compassion from them and there are ways to solve something. You get other people in, you call air conditioning people in, you pay them. You stay late, pay your guys overtime. You do what you have to do!”
Cox says she was told the A/C was repaired on June 8th, a day after her father died. Though she does question the effectiveness of those repairs as she and family have spent time clearing out the apartment.
Earlier this week office staff at Lakes at Lionsgate refused to give FOX4 contact info for owners or managers of the property who they said are in the St. Louis area. Property tax records list a post office box in O’Fallon, Missouri. FOX4 did find a phone number attached to a company name listed on the property’s website with multiple recent complaints to the Better Business Bureau.
In an effort to find out more about the issue and a timeline for repairs FOX4 made a dozen calls Thursday to four different regional managers at the number listed for that company and left messages with each, but still hadn’t received a reply late Thursday night.
“This is a large property and some issues are user error, some are bad parts and we are only as many people as we can be,” a maintenance worker said after repairing an air conditioning unit where the wires had been installed incorrectly Monday.
We try to get to people as quick as we can.”
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