Dawn shares her story of how her apartment complex failed to maintain the stairs in the parking garage, resulting in a very traumatic fall.

“My husband and I were going to a church function called Food Truck Friday where we used to serve quite a lot at. Our apartment is a lower- was in a lower area, and you have to go up the steps to get to the car park.

I realized it was a little colder than what I thought it was going to be, so I told him I was going to go back to the apartment to get my jacket. So I started on my way back down the steps and everything, and the one of the metal parts caught the tread of my shoe.
I started to fall, and down nine steps headlong I fell to the bottom, hitting my mouth and chin and breaking my hand on the way, on the way down leaving, leaving scars and teeth issues from, from the, from the falls.

My husband finds me at, at the base of the steps and everything in a bloody heap, and I lay there for what seemed like an eternity, but was able to find my footing and get back up and went in, went into the apartment to kind of clean up and kind of assess, you know, how, how bad I was hurt, and realizing that my, my hand was broken, and, you know, the wounds would not stop bleeding, so we- He took me back up the steps I had just fell down to get up to the car and go to the hospital.

I had, I had terrors and night dreams of, of falling and it just, it was reoccurring and over and over again.

The apartment complex decided that they were going to have their people call us and, and for damage control, and she said, “Hey, we’ll take care of your medical.” I knew that, that that wasn’t right, so.

And before I got on the phone, I just, I stopped and, and I just prayed that, you know, that God would lead us to, to a person that not only would get something done but also cared about me. And my first initial contact was with Rachel, and Rachel said: “I a- I need to talk to my, I need to talk to my brother, Ray, and but I think that I think that this is a case that definitely needs our attention.” Fast forward three weeks later, we were in a conference call with Rachel and Ray, and we were being asked all these specific questions by people that really actually cared. They were definitely the lifeline that we needed in a time that was just literally filled with terrors.
They not only cared, but the, Ray’s entire staff was there when I had any questions, there with any updates. Lots of times, I didn’t even, I didn’t even have to call because they kept me up to date and up to speed about where we, we were at, what was going on. You know, I, I didn’t have to, I didn’t have to do anything, but, you know, just, you know, be available for a phone call. They took care of everything else. They were able to give a little person a voice and get something done in a huge way and in an impact that not only protected me and my family, but they got us, they got us out of the apartment when we- when I was unable to sleep. They got us safely moved to another apartment complex. They were there when we needed them, and in an impact that not just, not just helped, you know, us, but it helped the community.

We started noticing my son still lived at the complex for a little while longer after we had, we were able to leave, and we had noticed that the steps started to be replaced, not, not just in that complex, but all over complexes all over Sherman, so it was it was a huge victory for, for people that lived in those complexes and everything that, that it was- Ray was able to be the, the head of that spear and say, “You know, you are going to, you know, take care of these people. You know, this is not right. You’re going to take care of them,” and that’s exactly what he did. He is a man of his word, and he runs his entire business like a family. I very much felt like family. Very much felt like family.”