Woman wakes up under debris after her apartment ceiling crashes down

By Sharon Chen

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    KANSAS CITY, Missouri (KCTV) — A Kansas City, Missouri, woman is lucky to have escaped serious injury when the ceiling above her came crashing down.

It happened at Parade Park Homes near 18th & Vine.

“I just heard this sound, like a rumble,” said Ageelah Gant.

That sound was a disaster seconds away from happening. Then it did. In the pitch dark at 3 a.m. on Friday morning, Ageelah woke up buried beneath a mound of debris.

“I was shocked,” she said. “I was shocked. Like, what is going on?”

More like, “What went down?” It was her entire ceiling.

Shocked, scared and discombobulated, she managed to find her phone.

“I got my Mom on the phone and I was like, ‘Emergency! Emergency! Come quick! Come quick!” Ageelah said.

Luckily, she escaped with minor injuries. However, Ageelah said it could have been worse.

“I have sickle cell anemia and I just had hip surgery on my left hip in November,” said Ageelah.

She added it didn’t have to happen in the first place.

“For like months, months and months,” Ageelah said. “It’s leaking in two different spots in my room.”

Calls to apartment management seemed to fall on deaf ears.

“I had been telling them about it and telling them about it and telling them about it,” said Ageelah. “‘Oh OK, we’re going to put a tarp on it.’ ‘OK, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that.’”

No tarp, no patches and no fixes. Ageelah said every storm became a test of her faith.

“Every time it rains, I’m just like, ‘Please Lord, please Lord, let it be a light rain. Just a little bit, just a little bit,” Ageelah said.

The leaks went on and, more recently, Ageelah noticed something new.

“There was a line, like, in my ceiling,” she said. “So, when I got back upstairs last night, the line was extremely long. So, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.’”

Now the line is a giant, gaping hole.

“I had no clue it would do this,” she said. “I had no clue. It could have been and should have been prevented. Nobody should have to live like this. Nobody should ever have to deal with this or go through this. Nobody.”

Ageelah and her family are now searching for an attorney.

She said she knows other tenants have had problems. KCTV5 cameras spotted a roof with a blue tarp across from Ageelah’s unit.

KCTV5 contacted Parade Park Homes management and we were told, “No comment.”

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