Posted on 02/19/2017 6:26:23 PM PST by Gamecock
n Springfield Township, Ohio, one house lay quiet for months, its neighbors not noticing anything unusual or alarming, according to the Toledo Blade.
But inside that house, a 75-year-old woman was living in squalor, surrounded by feces and trapped in one chair for months.
According to police reports, Barbara Foster was finally rescued Thursday from her house, where she had been trapped for as long as a year, so long that her skin had begun to mold itself into the very fabric of the chair, per WCMH.
Foster, who weighed 550 pounds when she was rescued, was transported to a Toledo hospital, but as she was removed from her house by emergency responders, she screamed in pain because her bones were so frail, the movement caused them to break, according to WTOL.
Her current condition is unclear, per the Blade.
Police discovered Foster’s condition after a church volunteer who had been caring for her for a decade called 911 to say that Foster was “not acting herself,” per WTOL. The volunteer also told police he had not seen Foster anywhere but her chair since at least July.
According to local media reports, police and first responders needed to wear hazmat suits in order to enter the house, but the volunteer said that the residence has smelled the same since he first began helping her. WTOL, however, reported that the smell reached the sidewalk.
Multiple neighbors told the Blade that they had not seen Foster in years, with one couple who had lived in the area since 1995 saying they never even knew her name. However, WCMH interviewed one neighbor, Leirin Snyder, who claimed to be Foster’s goddaughter and said she knew Foster was a hoarder but was unaware of her condition. Snyder said she had not visited Foster in some time.
According to the Blade, police received two calls from Foster’s house in May, but no reports were ever filed regarding the incidents. The police are currently investigating the current incident to determine if any crime was committed.
Who cares. Climate Change is far more important.
Yo’ Mamma is so fat....
Well they don’t intentionally do it on purpose. You will find a history of sexual & physical abuse behind a morbidly obese person. Food began as a comfort to emotional pain but in time it becomes simply an addiction.
OMG! It sounds like the plot of a Steven King novel. The “caretaker” would have to have been feeding her...and ignoring that she was defecating and urinating all over herself and the chair for...a year? We’re to think that the caretaker didn’t know she was stuck in the chair? And the smell was so bad it reached to the sidewalk, but the caretaker just said it was always like that?
It sounds like some protracted attempted first degree murder. I’d have to guess something like the caretaker cashing the woman’s social security checks?
She was actually doing a test for NASA to see what would happen if you don’t move for months at a time like in stasis. They probably have others doing a multi-year test.
The result; bones become so weak they break at the slightest weight on them.
Yeah, I just made all that up, but the article did say her bones had become so weak and brittle they broke when she was moved.
This was actually an episode on a series. But darn if I can remember which one.
So sad. When I was younger, I thought what the heck is wrong with fat people, and why don't they get themselves out of it? Then when I got older I put on a few pounds, and understood how hard it is to resist the temptation of eating. But most of us know not to let the overeating get out of control. As you said, food is a comfort to emotional pain for morbidly obese people. They languish in emotional hurt and binge on food to comfort themselves. That show I watched a few days ago showed the emotional hurt these people have. The doctor referred the woman to a psychologist to help the woman get to the roots of her emotional hangups and get over it, because the doctor said without emotional healing the woman would just get obese again despite the surgery and dieting help. In this woman's case, it was neglect by her parents paying all their attention to a sibling (with physical ailments). She got over the hurt, and began eating healthy food and exercising.
And thought she was feeding her chewing mouth dog.
My uncle's wife was a hoarder. The lived on their own property, and didn't have visitors. Didn't want them, they made it clear.
When the truth finally came out, we discovered that they actually had to live in a garden shed because the house was filled to the ceiling with junk.
It was shocking. My uncle said he couldn't get her to stop hoarding, and he was too embarrassed to tell anyone or let anyone see it.
What a sad old couple.
It's Springfield. Is it the same Springfield the Simpsons are from?
Right. This story’s facts are confused.
That is very sad. I hope you're able to extend a hand and help them, despite their refusals (unless they passed). My mother-in-law was a hoarder. Father-in-law died some years back, the children grown up and moved out, and my wife's mom let the hoard accumulate. Until her mental faculties declined and we stepped in to care for her, taking her into our home while we cleaned up her house. Took us two years to clear out most of the junk. And it was junk, all useless unnecessary garbage. There are a lot of people with severe psychological problems, manifesting into hopeless situations whether hoarding or morbid obesity.
You might be referring to this.
Some of the comments are interesting.
http://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/sad-story-480-75623.html
bmfl
And then there's the smell.
In the early 1980s I was a Paramedic. I am very familiar with what you are describing.
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