Boise, ID – The former maintenance supervisor of an apartment where a young man died of carbon monoxide poisoning last fall says she pleaded to property owners to fix faulty water heaters months before the death.
Sheila Thomason, former maintenance supervisor for First Rate Property Management, told the Idaho Statesman Thursday that she personally distributed carbon monoxide detectors and letters warning tenants of problems about a year and a half before 18-year-old McQuen Forbush died of carbon monoxide poisoning at Meridian’s Sagecrest Apartments. She took the action after a plumber reported that water heaters at 26 apartments were creating very high carbon monoxide levels.
She said she also emailed the president of the property owners association asking for immediate action.
“I don’t think that these 26 water heaters should be left on,” she wrote in the 2011 email obtained by the newspaper. “I don’t think I could live with myself if something happened to one of these tenants or their children, knowing this information.”
Forbush, a graduate of Nampa’s Columbia High School, and his girlfriend, Breanna Halowell, were staying the night at the apartment on Nov. 10, 2012 when Halowell woke up and found Forbush unresponsive on the floor. She called for help before she too became affected by the gas; Forbush died and Halowell required hospitalization for treatment of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Neither the email nor the plumber’s report list which of the 192 apartments were deemed unsafe, so it’s unclear whether the apartment where Forbush was staying was among them.
Forbush’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the property owner, the association, the management company and others. Eric Clark, attorney for Forbush’s family, said the tenant of that apartment had received a letter and CO detector on her door in early 2012, but the water heater was not replaced.
Thomason said she didn’t believe the water heater in that apartment was among those tagged in July 2011. She said though it took some time, all of the units tagged in July of 2011 received new water heaters.
“We couldn’t replace them all in one day. That’s why we left CO detectors,” she said.
Sagecrest has 48 four-plexes. Matthew Switzer owns Building 46, where Forbush died. Switzer’s attorney, Michael Haman, said Thursday that he had not seen any documents indicating there was anything wrong with the water heater in the unit before Forbush’s death.
Verity Property Management now manages Sagecrest. The company relayed the Statesman’s request for comment Tuesday to the Sagecrest property owners association, which did not respond.