A 68-year-old New Jersey woman who relied on an oxygen tank died this week in the sweltering heat after PSE&G shut off her power, her family said. PSE&G says it wasn’t notified of the woman’s medical condition and was working to reconnect the electricity.
Daniels was in her Shephard Avenue home in Newark for hours after her oxygen tank and air-conditioning stopped working about 10 a.m. Thursday, according to nj.com. She died at 4:23 p.m. of heart failure, her family said.
The family was putting ice on her and fanning Linda Daniels to try to make it cool, but they couldn’t pump the oxygen because there was no electricity, the family told News12. She had an overdue balance that exceeded $100.
“I knew that she (would) eventually pass because of her condition but I didn’t know that because the lights went off, that she would suffer the way she did,” one family member told News12.
Karen A. Johnson, a PSE&G spokeswoman, said the company is “saddened to hear that Ms. Daniels passed away on Thursday. We extend our sincere condolences to her family.”
Johnson said the service to the residence was disconnected on Thursday because of the lack of payments over several months.
“As part of our policy, PSE&G had notified this customer numerous times that their account was in arrears and that they would be scheduled for a service termination unless the account was made current,” she said. “Unfortunately, because there was no response from the customer, the customer was shut off.”
PSE&G would have made accommodations had the company known about the woman’s medical condition, Johnson said.
“PSE&G carefully follows state procedures for customers with special circumstances that are taken into consideration when service termination decisions are being made,” she said. “After the disconnection occurred and we were notified that the customer had medical issues, we began the process to reconnect the service.
“We are reviewing our records to determine what transpired. We encourage customers who have medical issues to contact us so that we can note their circumstances on their accounts.”
Daniels had been in hospice care with congestive heart failure since the middle of April, and her family said she was in good spirits but relied on her oxygen tank to breathe. The hospice nurse said Daniels would pass in God’s time, according to the report.
“She was trying to catch her breath – she was gasping for air,” her granddaughter, Mia, 28, told nj.com. “She suffered and she passed right in front of us. She was gasping until the time she died.”
Daniels’ daughter, Desiree Washington, said family members called PSE&G throughout the day, pleading with them to turn the power back on. “She had just paid $500 two days before,” Desiree told nj.com. “And she’s a senior. We asked them, ‘Why are you turning off her electric at the pole?'”
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