The Rebel Faction

She lived in filth, so large she couldn't move from her sofa, even to use the bathroom.
Early Wednesday, still fused to the couch, Gayle Laverne Grinds died following a six-hour effort by rescue workers who struggled to lift the 480-pound woman and get her to a Martin County hospital.

Unable to separate the skin of the 39-year-old woman from her sofa, 12 Martin County Fire-Rescue workers slid both onto a trailer and hauled her behind a pickup to Martin Memorial Hospital South. She died a short time later.

[snip]

Rescue workers were called to the home at 8:44 p.m. Tuesday by Grinds' brother and his girlfriend, who reported the woman had trouble breathing and "emphysema problems." The crew initially tried to remove her from the couch, but the pain was too excruciating.

Workers wore protective clothing and installed large air handling hoses to ventilate the horrendous odor emitting from the home while trying to figure out how to get the woman and her couch to the hospital.

The street in front of the row of duplex apartments turned into a makeshift construction site as rescue crews used hammers and chain saws to build a large wooden stretcher with handles cut around the perimeter so firefighters could lift the woman and the couch, Martin County Fire-Rescue District Chief Jim Loffredo said.

After several failed attempts, including building one plywood plank that was too small to hold her, workers removed sliding glass patio doors at the back of the home, leaving a 6-foot opening large enough to get her out.

They slid the couch with her on it onto the larger wooden plank supported by 2-by-4 boards, which were slid onto a utility trailer.

"We couldn't get her in the ambulance," Loffredo said.

Full story here: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/martin_stlucie/epaper/2004/08/12/m1a_mcbody_0812.html

Now, I dunno but, when it gets to the point where you don't get up to go to the big girls room, it's time to start looking into a diet of some sort. Or some sort of help institution.

Well, that is pretty horrendous....

"I tried to take care of her the best I could," said 54-year-old Herman Thomas, who lived with Grinds in the duplex apartment in Golden Gate, south of Stuart. "I tried to get her to get up, but it wouldn't do no good."
He said the woman that he called his wife hadn't been off the couch for six years. No record of their marriage could be found.

"I wish I could have pulled her off the couch, but she wouldn't let me," he said, covering his face and sobbing.

Inside the home, the floor and walls were matted with feces, and trash was strewn across the floors, some which were bare concrete. Furniture was toppled, and pictures were knocked off walls.

Atlas said sheriff's detectives will look for potential "negligence issues" related to her care and death.

If you ask me, they should have charged the man living with her. Whether the woman wanted him to get her off the couch doesn't matter. You can't tell me that there wasn't anyone he could call to get the woman some help. Even if she refused the help, he could have gotten a court order to declare her emotionally unfit to make her own decisions and then medical services could have stepped in and done whatever they could for her; atleast for up to 72 hours before having to legally release her; which at that time, they could still keep her under medical care by going before a judge, etcetra.

"Potential Negligence Issues" - Yeah, by what's stated in the news article, its not potential. Its fact that there was negligence.

Unidentified relatives expressed anger at the scene.
"Family members are upset.... It's a difficult position," Martin County Fire-Rescue specialist Chris Wisniewski said.

In the past six years you cannot tell me that not one of the members of the family wasn't aware of what was going on in that house. Hell, I don't talk to my mother or my father at all but I still know what's going on in their lives through other family members and friends.

Yes, its disgusting that the woman became morbidly obese and fused to the couch; however, it was preventable and intervenable. Its sad that no one seemed to care for the woman enough to get her help.

Definitely. I don't understand it either, but then again, people suck and today they seem to be more self-absorbed in their own little worlds than they are worried about the ones they supposedly love.

I can't imagine the depths of the depression, lack of self-pride and how deep her low self-esteem went in order to allow herself to get that obese. Granted, there could have been medical reasons behind some of the obesity, but I doubt it. Not to that point of how heavy she was.

I hope that her family truly mourns her loss because they loved her. I'd hate to die thinking that no one cared for me.

Syren:

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Yes, its disgusting that the woman became morbidly obese and fused to the couch; however, it was preventable and intervenable. Its sad that no one seemed to care for the woman enough to get her help.

I wouldn't start laying on the blame until more information hits the web.

Is she retarded, or in possession of her full faculties? The sheer ridiculousness of the situation points to the possibility that she was not all there, but it doesn't say for certain.

Maybe she was going for the Guinness record of sitting in one place, without moving? Maybe she told her husband that she wasn't moving until he stopped seeing other men? Maybe she had a leg injury that prevented her from moving for a period of time, and she suddenly decided that she liked it there?

I dunno. Not enough details for me to start pointing fingers and saying "It's their fault, hang'em high!"