By admin 
COOLIDGE, AZ (AZFamily) — Power is back on in Coolidge after an unexpected outage left more than 4,000 customers in the dark overnight, according to the Western Area Power Administration.
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Officials say the cause was likely weather-related as storms moved through the area Saturday afternoon around the time the outage began. A lightning strike may have been the culprit.
In extreme temperatures, an extended outage is more than an inconvenience — it can be dangerous.
Coolidge mom Karen Glaser knows that firsthand. Her 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,” Glaser said. “He fell 165 feet, broke every bone in his body.”
She said that battle for comfort and healing became even harder when the power went out.
“I came in from the back door; everything was dark,” Glaser said.
Just after 2:30 p.m. Saturday, much of Coolidge lost electricity, impacting homes, businesses and families. Some residents said temperatures inside their homes climbed to around 90 degrees. Others sought hotel rooms, but that wasn’t an option for everyone.
Some people slept in their cars, bought ice or found pools to cool down.
For Glaser, the outage created an urgent medical emergency.
“The first thing is, what am I going to do with David?” she said.
Glaser said her son’s bed and other equipment lost power—and backup systems did not turn on.
“His bed was off. None of the backup systems came on,” Glaser said. “So I lost everything right away — his pulse ox, oxygen levels.”
Because of his injuries, she said David cannot regulate his body temperature on his own and relies on machines. Moving him is not an option, she said.
“I got more and more scared,” Glaser said. “I didn’t know what I was going to do.”
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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 him 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 there and I can’t leave him,” Glaser said. “When they were giving out ice, I couldn’t. I started sending out help messages and then my phone died, and 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 are 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 it kept moving the time — they moved the time like four times.”
Power was restored Sunday morning, about 16 hours later, bringing relief to Glaser’s family and thousands of others.
For Glaser, she said it was too close.
“But no, this can never happen again,” Glaser said. “I can’t ever have this happen again.”
Monsoon season continues through mid-September. It’s a reminder to have an emergency plan in place, including backup power options and a way to reach help if cell service is disrupted.
For links to resources and what you need to know, go to azfamily.com/monsoon.
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Read more Brief cooldown ahead with low storm chances remaining