Humanity and charity still prevail in the U.S., evidenced by an Arizona heating and cooling company that stepped in to replace a 95-year-old woman’s air conditioning unit after she ended up in the hospital with a severe heat illness.
The senior’s daughter, Susan Guzman, told the local ABC affiliate that her mother’s air conditioning broke down two months ago. The pair live together in their South Phoenix home.
Not long after the unit failed, mother Josephine Gonzales, who also suffers from dementia, landed in the hospital, where she spent three days in intensive care.
Temperatures in Phoenix’s desert climate regularly reach into the high 90s and lower 100s in the summer months.
The mother has remained in an acute rehabilitation center, the daughter said, as her home has remained without centralized air conditioning. A new HVAC system was estimated at $15,000, and Guzman couldn’t raise the funds.
“For the last few months, everything that can go wrong has been going wrong,” Guzman told ABC 15.
Moved by their plight, a local Scottsdale company called Arcadia Air took action and replaced the family’s entire system this week at no cost.
“I wish that we could help everybody. Obviously, you can’t,” Arcadia Air Operations Manager Mike Ryan told the local news outlet. “But, you know, sometimes somebody comes along, it just seems like it’s the right thing to do and we’re blessed enough that every once while, we’re able to help people out.”
Now that cool air started flowing through the house on Friday, Guzman said she is looking forward to her mother returning home.
“I just said thank God,” Guzman said. “There are good people.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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