WEST SENECA, N.Y. — A West Seneca Police Lieutenant is being recognized for helping a resident keep their cool.
Lieutenant Jon Luterek was dispatched to a home to check on the welfare of a resident after a concerned person called police that the resident's air conditioning unit stopped working and the resident appeared to be in distress.
When Lt. Luterek arrived, he found the temperature in the house was extremely high.
The resident was unable to afford to purchase a new air conditioning unit, so Lt. Luterek chipped in some of his own money, went to the store and purchased a new unit.
The Lieutenant, who the department says is a "chill guy", even installed the unit for the resident.
2 On Your Side spoke with Lt. Luterek about what happened.
"I was actually in dispatch when a call came in from a heating company, and they were concerned because they couldn't get a hold of a woman that had called them that her air conditioner had broken, so we gave her a call back and over the phone she sounded not, maybe like she wasn't doing so well, we decided it would be a good idea to go out and check on her. So when I got there, the heating and cooling company was there trying to fix her air conditioning, and the technician said that it was a really old unit and it wasn't repairable, so she would need a new one which would, obviously be, it's thousands of dollars," said Lt. Jonathan Luterek.
"She was kind of dizzy, not feeling super great, kind of your initial signs of heat exhaustion. So I had her sit in the patrol car, put the air conditioning on for about a half an hour, and just kind of have her cool down and an ambulance come out and check on her just to check her vitals, which had improved after sitting in the car," he said. "She didn't have the money to afford a new air conditioner, and I went inside the house and it was like around 97 degrees on the thermostat, which knowing it was going to be well into the high 80s and almost 90 degrees the next couple of days I was really concerned with how she was going to do. To me it wasn't an option. She needed an air conditioning unit, so myself, I went there with one of our behavioral health clinician who works with us full time just to link her up with resources and make sure she had a caseworker to try to get maybe an assisted living facility or get assistance with, you know, getting some money towards a new air conditioning unit. We went to the store and just grabbed her a new air conditioning unit and just installed it, so, and then here we are."
"She was super thankful for it. She is a really sweet lady, so she was super thankful. She tried giving us a little bit of money, but she didn't have enough, so, she was just really happy that we were able to help her out," said Lt. Luterek. "That's our whole kind of job as police officers is to try to help people, and so it was nice to get a chance, you know, to make a meaningful difference in someone's day-to-day life."