Las Vegans help replace AC for vulnerable senior, pets

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – When 8 News Now met 63-year-old Mark Potovsky in July, the medically vulnerable senior, his service dog, and cat were living in an inferno.

Boogie, his 14-year-old service dog, and Ozzie, his 19-year-old cat, were forced to endure heat inside the trailer they live in that was nearly as hot as it was outside. That extreme heat forced his air conditioning units to fail.

The all-time daily record of 120 degrees in Las Vegas was hit just days before he sought relief in a temporary cooling station in Henderson. There, he shared his story.

“It’s sweltering hot. It’s like being in an oven on low,” Potovsky said inside the Whitney Recreation Center on July 10. “I just feel like as (Boogie’s) dad, that I need to provide a safe place for him, and when the AC went out in the RV, it was no longer a safe place for him to be.”

The 63-year-old is rattled with health complications, including COPD, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes, he said. A slim social security check helps him scrape by but was not enough to fund a full AC replacement.

Then, 8 News Now viewers came to the rescue. A flurry of messages to the station asked how they could help.

The GoFundMe raised over $2,000 within days of the 8 News Now story, nearly all donations from strangers. It allowed both roof and window unit replacements inside the trailer that, beforehand, reached 115 degrees.

Potovsky, Boogie, and Ozzie have enjoyed a home set at 75 degrees for just over a week now.
“Just the weight of the concern for my pets and their welfare, not just my own, but their wellbeing is just, like, lifted completely off my shoulders,” Potovsky said Wednesday morning inside his air-conditioned trailer at an RV park along Boulder Highway. “I would have had to give up my animals and go seek a, you know, senior living situation.”

“Have you ever received this kind of support before?” 8 News Now asked.
“Never. I’ve never needed to,” Potovsky responded. “Now I have living conditions that are livable.”

Potovsky said he’s humbled by all the supporters, but specifically two donors that pledged more than half of the total amount raised between them. Those donors did so anonymously.

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