The Summer Window Air Conditioning Units Saved People's Lives

I live in the great state of Texas, and to say that summers get hot here would be a massive understatement. In my community, most of us have central heat and air conditioning, which works out very well for everyone involved, because it allows us to keep the temperatures inside our house at a cool and constant temperature. There was an occasion, however, about three years ago when I had to loan out about four window air conditioning units, and in hindsight, those units may have saved some lives.

Through a bizarre turn of events, we had five neighbors have their air conditioning systems go out over the summer a few years back. One of them was fairly old and just finally gave out. Two others had been vandalized. A fourth had just been fixed, but evidently had not been repaired properly and would not cool at all. I can't remember what happened to the fifth neighbor's air conditioning system, but he, too, was trying to endure 100 degree temperatures without air conditioning. That is not the smartest thing to do. None of them had window air conditioning units, either.

The worst part about it all was that they all refused to get a hotel until their air conditioning was fixed. They all said that they were going to tough it out. I had seen a few stories on the news recently about people who had died from the heat because they did not have air conditioning, and I certainly was not going to run the risk of that happening when I could help. My father had worked in air conditioning and heating for a number of years, and I probably had about a dozen window air conditioning units in my garage that were in perfect running order.

I contacted each one of the neighbors and pretty much insisted that I bring them over to their house and put them in. Predictably enough, they did not require much convincing. I encouraged them to stay in the room where the window air conditioning units were located for the next few nights until their systems were repaired, and to shut all of the other doors beside the ones to that room. Within an hour, they all had a cool room where they could escape, and I had some very grateful neighbors.

Once their systems were fixed, they all gave me back my window air conditioning units and thanked me profusely. I am not sure if those units saved their lives or not, but I was not going to run the risk of hearing about one of them on the news when I could do something to help.