Local

Tornado recovery update: Companies gifting generator for woman with COPD

UPDATE @ 9:25 p.m. (June 20): Two companies have come together to gift and install a generator in the home of Marvin Scott, the Trotwood man who has resorted to using more than 20 oxygen tanks to help keep his wife, who suffers from COPD, breathing.

A-Abel heard about the WHIO-TV report and contacted its generator representative at Briggs & Stratton and that company offered the donation, Vanessa Norman, A-Abel community relations manager, said Thursday.

A-Abel is providing the generator, valued at $3,000, with financial help from Briggs & Stratton, Norman said. A-Abel is providing the labor, valued at $3,200. The plan is to install the unit Friday.

Scott, in an email to News Center 7’s Sean Cudahy, said a go fund me page has been taken down and he’ll donate any funds from it to a help fund for Trotwood victims of the Memorial Day tornado outbreak.

“The fire department has given me a clean bill of health without any threats of fines,” Scott said.

COPD -- Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease -- is an umbrella term used to describe progressive lung diseases.

INITIAL REPORT (June 18)

A Trotwood man has found himself in a battle over regulations about the number of oxygen tanks being stored and used at his home, which was damaged in the Memorial Day tornado outbreak.

>> Beavercreek residents on their own with construction debris

Here's Marvin Scott's dilemma: The EF-4 tornado knocked out the electric service to his home, where his wife has to be on oxygen because she has stage-four COPD. Someone stole the family generator while the power was out.

He's using a series of non-electric portable tanks, each lasting less than an hour, as a work-around for Crystal. He has more than 20 tanks in the house because he can't afford to buy a new generator.

They're a hedge in case the electricity goes out again.

City of Dayton officials, surveying storm damage, noticed all the tanks inside and outside the home on Wolf Creek Pike and said the setup violates city ordinance, that Scott has more oxygen tanks than city regulations allow.

It's a potential explosion hazard should there be a fire, city officials have said.

They have given him until Friday to get rid of some of the tanks. A fine will come if he doesn't comply.

Scott has decided to dig in for a fight.

"I told them to fine me," he told News Center 7's Sean Cudahy on Tuesday night.

"If I had a generator I'd ship all that oxygen back, because if the electric goes out, plug her in, we'd play cards."

Scott said his wife would go into respiratory failure in less than 10 minutes if she's not on oxygen.

0
Comments on this article