UPDATE: Silvera for Seniors management said a technician had restored service in one elevator as of 10 a.m. Wednesday. A part is still needed for the second elevator.
Senior residents in a Calgary apartment complex are speaking out about health concerns related to an elevator breakdown that’s lasted for five days.
“I’ve got a blockage in my heart and the blood can’t circulate and it cuts off the oxygen in my brain,” said 84-year-old Marjorie Dewar. “So therefore I’m liable to pass out at any time.”
The Mountview Apartments, managed by Silvera for Seniors, is a seven-storey building in the city’s northeast.
Weeks ago, one of the building’s two elevators broke down. Then on Friday, the other one stopped working.
“There’s other people in here in wheelchairs, especially one who has to go every three days over to the Fanning Centre for dialysis,” Dewar said.
“Our living depends on that elevator.”
The Calgary Fire Department said they were called to the building on Friday and that an elevator technician was also in attendance.
Signs have since been put up, saying there’s no time frame for when the elevators will be fixed.
“It’s an unfortunate coincidence that when we were working on the solution to the first elevator, the second elevator went down,” Silvera for Seniors spokesperson Scott Ranson said. “If I had a mother or father who was in the building and had the same situation, I would be frustrated.”
Silvera management said it’s offering to pick up residents’ groceries until the problem is fixed.
But some residents have had enough.
“I’ve been a property manager in this city for 17 years and I’ve never seen such slack, good-for-nothing garbage,” resident Pearl Embree said.
With files from Erika Tucker
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