How the hell can this happen in the United States in this day and age? I am disgusted. This man survived a war, fought for his country and dies a miserable death alone in his frozen home. Sorry folks, this is unacceptable. My husband said there is a saying in the military, "you give so much and get so little"..Well this sure seems to be a testimony to that. What happened to neighbors checking in on the elderly and infirm? This man had noone. He died frozen and alone in the United States of America. I wonder if the utitlity company CEO sleeps well at night in his nice toasty warm home.
Jan 27, 2009 12:15 pm US/Eastern
Man, 93, Freezes To Death; Owed Huge Utility Bill
Medical Examiner: Marvin E. Schur Suffered 'Slow, Painful Death'BAY CITY, Mich. (AP) ―
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Officials in Bay City, Mich., said a 93-year-old World War II Vet froze to death inside of his home where the local power company had restricted his use of electricity. He was found on Jan. 17, 2009.
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A 93-year-old man froze to death inside his home just days after the municipal power company restricted his use of electricity because of unpaid bills, officials said.
Marvin E. Schur died "a slow, painful death," said Kanu Virani, Oakland County's deputy chief medical examiner, who performed the autopsy.
Neighbors discovered Schur's body on Jan. 17. They said the indoor temperature was below 32 degrees at the time, The Bay City Times reported Monday.
"Hypothermia shuts the whole system down, slowly," Virani said. "It's not easy to die from hypothermia without first realizing your fingers and toes feel like they're burning."
Schur owed Bay City Electric Light & Power more than $1,000 in unpaid electric bills, Bay City Manager Robert Belleman told The Associated Press on Monday.
A city utility worker had installed a "limiter" device to restrict the use of electricity at Schur's home on Jan. 13, Belleman said. The device limits power reaching a home and blows out like a fuse if consumption rises past a set level. Power is not restored until the device is reset.
The limiter was tripped sometime between the time of installation and the discovery of Schur's body, Belleman said. He didn't know if anyone had made personal contact with Schur to explain how the device works.
Schur's body was discovered by neighbor George Pauwels Jr.
"His furnace was not running, the insides of his windows were full of ice the morning we found him," Pauwels told the newspaper.
Belleman said city workers keep the limiter on houses for 10 days, then shut off power entirely if the homeowner hasn't paid utility bills or arranged to do so.
He said Bay City Electric Light & Power's policies will be reviewed, but he didn't believe the city did anything wrong.
"I've said this before and some of my colleagues have said this: Neighbors need to keep an eye on neighbors," Belleman said. "When they think there's something wrong, they should contact the appropriate agency or city department."
Schur had no children and his wife had died several years ago.
2 comments:
It happened because no one cared. Not the city which owned the utility, not the utility which placed the limiter on his meter and didn't bother to show the old man how to reset when it tripped, not the area council on aging, not his family which knew that he might be having some dementia issues and not his neighbors which did not investigate until they saw icicles formed on the inside of his windows.
Furthermore, yesterday Detroit police found an apparently homeless man frozen in a block of ice in an abandoned warehouse at the bottom of an elevator shaft. The body was recovered encased in the ice except for his face. They believe he'd been dead two months because the face had decomposed.
No one cares here Lori, not for the aged, the homeless or the struggling. Our politicians who are supposed to lead the charge are only concerned with getting their greedy snouts into the public trough, charities are overwhelmed and not able to provide any competent level of service, utility company's are only regulated if they are hyper regional but 1/2 the state is covered by unregulated utilities; but in either case they spend more money lobbying for rate increases than they do trying to aid the poor who can't pay, and the population in general doesn't give a tinkers damn because we have our own struggle to not freeze to death.
This is what happens in the place that leads the nation in the aftermath of the Bank's thievery and stupidity.
10.8% unemployment.
This is heartwrenching. Alot of people, true, are in their own financial struggle. But, their are also many who have bountiful resources to help the poor. They are the same shmucks who just got bailed out.
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