NEW ORLEANS — When the right half of Joseph Jones' body went numb, he was sixteen floors off the ground, with no fast way to get down.
"I’m near death,” Marais Apartments Resident Joseph Jones said. I’m afraid. I thought I was going to die right there in that building."
The elevators in his apartment building were out of service after a fire in one of the units earlier in the week. Jones says emergency responders had to carry him down all 16 flights of stairs in a chair.
"I thought they would not get to me in time,” Jones said. “Every time they would get to a landing, they would have to put me down. I was afraid they might drop me."
When he finally got to the hospital, doctors told him he'd had a stroke. Now, not only is he healing physically, but mentally as well, saying the experience has given him anxiety.
"I'm afraid to go back,” Jones said. “You know, this stroke is a serious condition. I mean, you know, it's nothing to play with."
Days before his stroke, he tells us he confronted management about his concerns but claims he was brushed off.
"They, you know, they gave us a bunch of excuses,” Jones said.
Jones isn’t the only one complaining about the building. We found a review on an apartment website that says the elevators are, quote, “constantly out of order.”
We spoke with management, who told us they have people on-site working to get the elevators up and running. And for now, they can be manually operated if needed, but residents still don’t have full access.
As for Jones, he doesn’t know what he will do in the meantime.
"We have to do better, do better for the senior citizens,” Jones said.
The Housing Authority of New Orleans once owned the building and helps secure vouchers for senior citizens wanting to move there. Neither they nor the city are involved in building maintenance.
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