Editor’s note: Denver7 Investigates will have this full story on Denver7 at 6 p.m. today.
AURORA — More than two years have passed since thousands of pounds of metal from an HVAC system came crashing down inside the pool of the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center in Aurora on May 6, 2023. Denver7 Investigates has been pressing to find out why the public has no answers on why the system fell.
Six people in total were injured, including two seriously. One of those who had life-threatening injuries was John Markiewicz, who spent 17 days in the hospital and underwent multiple surgeries. He suffered a traumatic brain injury and several fractures to his vertebrae, ribs, shoulder and arms. A 13-year-old girl was also severely injured, suffering a broken pelvis, shattered hip and internal bleeding.
“I don’t think we will ever understand,” John’s wife Patti Markiewicz told Denver7 Investigates, adding that she didn’t know if her husband would make it. “I was in shock. In a million years … I wouldn’t have expected anything like that to happen… My daughter is down on the ground with my husband holding his head together and there’s blood everywhere and there’s soot all over them.”
The Markiewicz family and six other plaintiffs have brought a 48-count lawsuit against the hotel and 15 other defendants — as Denver7 Investigates reported in June 2024 — accusing them of “gross negligence.” And more than two years after the incident, there are still no answers and no publicly disclosed third-party investigation into what caused the HVAC system to collapse that day…