Two years after HVAC equipment fell into the pool at Aurora’s Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center and injured six people, including two with life-threatening injuries, the matter will head to a jury trial.

A three-week trial was recently set for January 2026, according to recently filed court records.

Victims affected by a heating and air conditioning duct collapsing at the resort’s indoor pool said the equipment failure was caused by years of recklessness, they allege in their lawsuit filed earlier this year. They pointed blame at the companies behind the construction, design, installation, cleaning and maintenance of the HVAC system, as well as the owner Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc.

The companies deny responsibility for the incident, though a review by The Denver Gazette of court records show some defendants behind the design and installation are pointing fingers at each other.

The Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center, located south of Denver International Airport in Aurora, is the largest hotel in Colorado.

Construction began in 2016 and finished in 2018, costing about $800 million to build.

It recently made headlines as the backdrop where President-elect Donald Trump hosted a rally to detail his immigration deportation plan dubbed “Operation Aurora.”

To get the 85-acre resort developed, its owners got more than $1.3 billion in tax incentives over 23 years from Colorado and the City of Aurora, and the debate over its government subsidies lasted years and included a lawsuit from downtown Denver and Colorado Springs hotels worried it created an unfair competitive advantage (a case later tossed by a judge).

Resort owner Ryman Hospitality is again fighting a court battle in Adams County to contest its property valuation and lower it by several hundred million dollars.

From its inception, officials hoped the government tax incentives would draw development in the prairie land around the resort, known for its “everything in one place” model.

There are five Gaylord Resorts across the country with a sixth on the way in Chula Vista, Calif.

The Gaylord Rockies Resort in Aurora offers 1,500 hotel rooms and nearly a half-million square feet of convention center space — boasting restaurants, shops, a spa, pools and a lazy river. It’s become a major hub for attracting business events to the state, akin to the Colorado Convention Center, and is continuing to expand.

Gaylord Resort officials did not respond to a request for comment.

A terrible misfortune

In May 2023, less than five years after opening, an HVAC system collapsed in the resort’s indoor pool area filled with guests. It weighed thousands of pounds and dropped 35 feet from the air, according to court documents.

It fell like “dominos” around most of the pool’s perimeter.

John Markiewicz was on a trip to Denver from Florida to celebrate his granddaughter’s 4th birthday when he was crushed and trapped by the resort duct, leaving him unconscious and with “life-altering” injuries, according to the lawsuit.

Markiewicz was covered in a “black liquid” and struggled to breathe under the weight of the duct.

His wife, Patti Markiewicz, was not at the pool at the time of the collapse, but rushed to help her husband in the danger zone. She’s named in the suit seeking damages for emotional distress.

An unnamed minor competing in a gymnastics competition hosted at the resort was also seriously injured. The minor was using the hot tub when the duct collapsed. It struck her in the abdomen, according to court records, including rib and pelvic fractures, a bruised lung and shock from severe blood loss.

The family is suing Gaylord Rockies Resort and its contractors for damages and economic harm, post traumatic stress disorder, potential reproductive harm and emotional distress. The mother is listed as a plaintiff to seek damages for causing fear of her own life and fear for her daughter’s.

In the days following the equipment collapse, an Aurora spokesman said the city couldn’t investigate the collapse and it was up to the property owner to determine what caused it. Officials said Aurora’s building department conducted more than 60,000 inspections ahead of the resort’s debut.

The plaintiffs are suing the Gaylord Rockies Resort, Marriott International and its various contractors and subcontractors who designed, installed and/or worked on the HVAC system. There’s a total of 17 defendants the victims are suing for personal injury claims.

“They all have some responsibility. Certainly some may have more than others. And this is a tragedy,” Michael Burg, a personal injury lawyer representing the victims, told the Denver Gazette. “If anybody was paying attention, this would never happen.”

Burg said he was surprised none of the defendants tried to resolve the case through mediation before it got to trial.

“There’s all these defendants who are trying to figure out how they could get out from having liability here,” Burg said. “But there are so many ways that this could have been prevented.”

Dispute over the cause

One of the biggest disputes is whether the design of the collapsed duct or the hanger holding it were the cause of the failure.

Defendant Blum Consulting Engineers, a Dallas-based mechanical, plumbing and electrical engineering firm, designed the HVAC system and the duct work for the indoor pool building. The company was hired as a subcontractor for the resort’s architects, Denver-based HKS, Inc.

Blum denies the victims’ allegations that the design was at fault and led to the collapse.

Instead, court documents show, Blum claims it believes the hanger system meant to support the HVAC did not conform with the design that was chosen and the company also said it never approved the hanger system.

The Gaylord Rockies Resort was built by a joint venture between Mortenson and Welbro Building Corp. It subcontracted a Denver-based construction company to develop the hanger system, RK Industries.

“Blum rejected the hanger system designed by RK on three separate occasions. The hanger system was finally approved in a meeting that did not include Blum,” according to Blum’s defense position outlined in a November court filling.

Blum’s contractor HKS also said in its defense position that it “later learned that the hangers were not what was previously submitted.”

RK Industries and Mortenson/Welbro denied the hanger’s design led to the equipment malfunction injuring several resort guests in court documents. The hanger designer retorted that Blum “stamped and sealed” all plans related to construction, according to court documents.

Attorneys representing RK Industries did not respond to a Denver Gazette request for comment.

Blum filed a motion to add fault to the resort’s developer, RIDA Development Corp. — one of the main beneficiaries of the $1 billion in tax incentives before it sold the rest of its ownership stake to Ryman in 2021.

RIDA, credited for getting Colorado’s Gaylord-branded hotel across the finish line after years of fighting over incentives, was not originally on the victim’s complaint when the lawsuit was first filed.

The motion brought by Blum claimed experts during an investigation after the collapse found the Gripple Duct Hanger was the “sole cause” of the collapse. Blum said RIDA made the final approval despite their rejections.

RIDA denied responsibility and said in its answer to complaints that the accident was the “result of acts or omissions of others over whom RIDA had no right or authority to control.”

Meanwhile, RK Industries and Johnson Controls, Inc. are placing some — if not all — blame on the commissioning engineer for the Gaylord Rockies, Rick Botto of Compass Commissioning & Design based out of Tennessee.

Botto was in charge of overseeing the equipment and systems such as the HVAC in the Indoor Pool Building, according to a motion the company filed. The document didn’t state a reason for negligence like Blum’s similar motion to add another party to the case other than Botto’s role as the commissioning engineer.

Compass Commissioning specializes in building automation systems, power and heat generation and HVAC testing and balancing, according to its website. Commissioning is the process of checking the system after its installed to make sure it’s installed and operated as designed.

Compass Commissioning and Botto denied any claims of negligence and said he wasn’t in charge of overseeing the equipment and systems at the “relevant times.” The company, in its answer to the complaint, said it performed a “limited scope” of commissioning work on the HVAC in the pool area during the warranty phase, and one time after the period ended.

Burg said he doesn’t know yet what might come out of the investigation conducted by Gaylord Rockies Resort, though he hasn’t seen many cases were an independent investigation in incidents like this weren’t conducted.

“Why would you not let outside people come in and investigate such a horrible incident,” Burg said.