480-Pound Woman Dies After Six Years On Couch

sanctus

The Padre
Oct 27, 2006
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Ontario
www.poetrypoem.com
STUART, Fla. -- A 480-pound Martin County woman has died after emergency workers tried to remove her from the couch where she had remained for about six years.

Gayle Laverne Grinds, 40, died Wednesday, after a failed six-hour effort to dislodge her from the couch in her home. Workers say the home was filthy, and Grinds was too large to get up from the couch to even use the bathroom.
Not weird enough?
A preliminary autopsy on the the four-foot, ten-inch woman lists the cause of death as "morbid obesity." But officials want to know more about the circumstances inside the home.

Investigators say Grinds lived with a man named Herman Thomas, who says he tried to take care of her the best he could. He has told them he tried repeatedly to get her up, but simply couldn't. No charges have been filed, but officials are looking into negligence issues.

Emergency workers had to remove some sliding glass doors and lift the couch, with Grinds still on it, to a trailer behind a pickup truck. Removing her from the couch would be too painful, since her body was grafted to the fabric. After years of staying put, her skin had literally become one with the sofa and had to be surgically removed.

She died at Martin Memorial Hospital South, still attached to the couch.

Neighbours say they had no idea Grinds lived at the duplex, though they had seen Thomas and some children outside.

The Associated Press
 

Kreskin

Doctor of Thinkology
Feb 23, 2006
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That's pretty sad. At least she isn't suffering anymore.
 

L Gilbert

Winterized
Nov 30, 2006
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the-brights.net
Good a place as any for one to bite the green wiener.

Had an aunt in PoCo who, after a decade or something of living in extensive care wishing to die, finally died. I wasn't there but she probably had a smile on her face when they found her. I'd prefer the couch, too.
 

Dexter Sinister

Unspecified Specialist
Oct 1, 2004
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Regina, SK
And how did she get to weigh 480 pounds and get herself welded to the couch? Unless she had some serious psychological or metabolic issues, it sounds like a case of morbid self-indulgence to me. Hard to be sympathetic. I'd have to agree that anyone who does that to herself must indeed have some major psychological issues, but I've never been sure where to draw the line between mental illness and taking responsibility for your own behaviour. And there must have been a point where she became unable to get off the couch and somebody else kept over-feeding her to keep her there. If she can't get off the couch, somebody's bringing her food, so there's at least one other person culpable here. Disgusting, repulsive, and pathetic all around.
 

Zzarchov

House Member
Aug 28, 2006
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Someone should be culpable because they didn't let her starve?

Its not there business, and its certainly not his job to pay to get her health care. Its not Canada, no free health care.
 

sanctus

The Padre
Oct 27, 2006
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at least one other person culpable here. Disgusting, repulsive, and pathetic all around.


I agree with you, though such thinking is considered mean. we are supposed to ignore and be kind to the overly fat population. If I light a cigarette, it is perfecly acceptable to come up to me and bitch about it. If I am obscenely fat, it is considered rude to tell me so. But what is the difference between being fat and smoking? Both are examples of bad health. It is one of my flaws, as I have a very hard time with fat people who allow themseleves to get so big they look obscene.
In some respects they amaze me. And have you noticed they almost always claim it is their metabolism, or they are big-boned???, or the funniest, that they don't eat that much!
It is the number one health problem in our society.
 

tamarin

House Member
Jun 12, 2006
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Oshawa ON
It's a macabre story. I can only think of the longsuffering family members who had to toilet her all the time. One could argue it's hardly a death when no life is involved. She wasn't living before she died... Which brings up the great bugaboo that will become greater still as the years move on and the longevity cult holds ever larger and more sinister convocations: euthanasia.