On June 12, 2015, a shocking explosion rocked the tranquility of an otherwise peaceful neighborhood. The explosion occurred at around sundown at a 45-year-old, 18 unit apartment complex located in Littleton known as South Glenn Place Apartments.
18 families are now displaced, and in some cases, homeless. These victims were tenants too poor to do much about it. By all accounts, the explosion of the likely poorly maintained hot water boiler launched massive metal fragments that pierced through the walls like shrapnel as well as scalding hot water. The demolished walls released asbestos into the air, further endangering the victims.
Our client, Justine Platero, a two year resident of South Glenn Place, lost every possession she and her family had. More importantly, she almost lost her life. She sustained burns over most of her face, neck, shoulders and arm. She was airlifted to University Hospital and remained there for a week. In the ensuing days, she remained hospitalized with doctors attending to her burns, administering skin grafts, and attending to possible lung damage due to Ms. Platero's exposure to ash and asbestos.
How did the rich apartment owners take responsibility for their apparent lapse in maintenance of this rundown, low income property? Did they step up and take responsibility? Did they attend to the needs of Ms. Platero and her now homeless neighbors? Did they even spearhead or at least cooperate in a prompt investigation? At this stage, the answer appears to be that they did none of these things.
Triton Property chose not to provide state investigators with proper and timely notice. Instead, they waited 17 days to report the incident. In the meantime, several boiler components that were vital to the investigation curiously went missing even though attorneys here at Anderson Hemmat demanded early on that they be preserved. Also, Triton attempted to pay tenants hush money to buy their silence about the explosion.
A week following this catastrophic explosion, Anderson Hemmat filed suit in Arapahoe District Court to hold Triton responsible.Separately, other tenants sought help for Triton's apparent misdeeds from local media. The story of this needless tragedy was publicized in a detailed expose' that aired on August 12, 2015 by local Fox 31 investigative journalist Rob Low. The story continues to unfold, and the victims' plight continues.
Read the original article here.
