Mom struggles to keep son alive during 16-hour power outage as medical equipment fails

COOLIDGE, Ariz. (AZFamily/Gray News) - An Arizona mother spent 16 hours struggling to keep her son alive after the medical equipment he relies on failed during a power outage.

Karen Glaser’s son, David, is bedbound and relies on medical equipment that requires electricity.

“It’s supposed to be the end stage, but he has some days of alertness,” Glaser said. “They told me he’d be paralyzed from the neck down, but he’s not.”

Glaser said their lives changed May 9, 2020.

“David went off the 60-10 triple stack a little over six years ago,” she said. “He fell 165 feet, broke every bone in his body.”

Every day since has been a battle of comfort and healing for the family. That became even harder when the power unexpectedly went out just after 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

“I came in from the back door, and everything was dark,” Glaser said.

The 16-hour outage left much of Coolidge — more than 4,000 customers — in the dark overnight, impacting homes, businesses and families. In extreme temperatures, such an extended outage is more than an inconvenience; it can be dangerous.

Some residents said temperatures inside their homes climbed to around 90 degrees. Others sought hotel rooms, while still others slept in their cars, bought ice or found pools to cool down.

For Glaser, the outage created an urgent medical emergency. She said her son’s bed and other equipment lost power, and backup systems did not turn on.

“The first thing is what am I going to do with David?” she said. “His bed was off. None of the backup systems came on. So, I lost everything right away — the pulse oximeter, his oxygen levels.”

Because of his injuries, Glaser said David cannot regulate his body temperature on his own and relies on machines. Moving him was not an option.

“I got more and more scared,” she said. “I didn’t know if we were going to make it.”

Glaser said the temperature inside her home climbed to 100 degrees as the hours passed. She used rags soaked in water to try to keep David stable. She also said she had to manually suction saliva from his mouth to keep him from choking.

“I was a sitting duck here, and I had no way out,” she said.

Across town, Coolidge Unified School District worked with the city to distribute ice and open a cooling center, but Glaser said she couldn’t leave her son to get help.

“I can’t get him there, and I can’t leave him,” Glaser said. “When they were giving out ice, I couldn’t get there. I started sending out help messages, and then, my phone died. I had no phone service. I couldn’t call 911 at that point.”

Glaser said she was told their home was on an emergency list, but the estimated restoration time kept changing.

“We’re on the emergency list, and they said, ‘Don’t worry, your power will be back on by 5 p.m.,’” she said. “Then 5:30, I called back, and they just kept moving the time. They moved the time like four times.”

Power was restored Sunday morning, bringing relief to Glaser’s family and thousands of others. But for Glaser, it was a close call — too close.

“No, this can never happen again,” Glaser said. “I can’t have this happen again.”

Officials with the Western Area Power Administration say the outage was likely weather-related, as storms moved through the area Saturday afternoon around the time it began. A lightning strike may have been the culprit.