Posted on 05/22/2009 11:25:24 PM PDT by Chet 99
As if the death of a family member weren't heart-wrenching enough, relatives of an obese Indiana woman were outraged Tuesday over the way the county coroner handled her death.
Hours after the death of 48-year-old Teresa Smith, who weighed over 750 pounds, a flatbed truck was sent to her apartment to retrieve the body, FOX affiliate WXIN-TV reported. The Marion County deputy coroner told the station that it was their only option because of her weight.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Not Likely!
She may need especially strong family members to carry the weight of thier loss!
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.
Ack! I got a visual!
(He really is “The Bent One”)...
37 seconds...
38 *sigh*
Poor wretch. Even in death there is no escape from abuse. May she rest in peace.
Or possibly Bobby Darin’s “Clementine.”
That is so wrong!
Yeah for sure.
Bogus lawsuit hysteria from the very same people who brought the deceased eight billion pounds of food over the years.
” I don’t want her...you can have her....she’s too fat for me”.......
heh heh heh...
http://www.indystar.com/article/20090521/NEWS05/905210477/Handling+of+obese+corpse+criticized
“”Covered with a carpet, a 750-pound woman was removed from her Northeastside apartment by a flatbed wrecker after she died on Tuesday morning.
The boyfriend of Teresa Smith, who had cared for the woman for the last four years, was distraught about the way her remains were handled by the Marion County coroner.
“You know how you hoist a car on a flatbed with a chain? That’s how they took her up there,” said David Johnson.
Coroner Frank Lloyd Jr. said the circumstances could have been handled in a more sensitive fashion, and his office hopes to get equipment to take care of future problems. Funeral directors told the coroner they could not handle the body, and firefighters who could have taken care of the job were not available, he said.
“The last time we had to do this was in 1997,” said Lloyd. “Having been through this once, there are some steps we can take to prevent the neighborhood’s perception.”
Smith, 48, had been bedridden because of her weight, unable to walk down the handful of steps in front of her ground-floor unit at the Carriage House apartments near 42nd Street and Mitthoefer Road.
When she died early Tuesday morning in her apartment, her 13-year-old son discovered his mother had passed away and told Johnson, 60.
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department sent a homicide detective to check the case, and it was decided that foul play was not involved. The cause of death had not been determined as of Thursday.
Previously, Smith had fallen and the Indianapolis Fire Department had helped her get back into her bed, Johnson said. But Lloyd said firefighters were not available to help on Tuesday morning, and funeral directors said they could not handle the removal.
Smith’s excessive weight led the coroner’s office to contact Zore’s, a wrecker company that handles cases for that office.
According to Johnson, Smith was dragged out of the apartment on the mattress where she died. She was removed through sliding patio doors, and part of a wooden privacy fence had to be uprooted to make room for the removal.
Then, Smith was lifted onto the flatbed, which had backed into apartment courtyard. The procedure used resembles the way a wrecker recovers a large motorcycle, which weighs roughly the same as the woman. Johnson said the wrecker hooked a hoist to the mattress where Smith lay and then lifted the woman onto the flatbed.
The woman was covered with a carpet from her apartment, which Lloyd said was the only covering available, and was not the best way to handle a situation where the body was visible to several apartment dwellers in the small courtyard between buildings.
“That’s always a tough decision, to decide what sort of privacy you’re going to establish,” said Lloyd. “You want to take as much caution as possible.”
Two days after Smith’s death, Johnson still faced a number of decisions, such as how to pay for her funeral. With his only work being occasional bicycle and lawnmower repair, Johnson was not certain where he could find the funds for the arrangements.
Lloyd was looking at the possibility of having the coroner purchase a special cart for obese corpses.””
The really sick thing all these super-obese people have/had in common is family members feeding them and waiting on them hand-and-foot.
If they were on their own they could not get away with doing that to themselves.
According to the RATs, food deprivation is considered torture.
So the state will provide food regardless of family..
She had a boyfriend?
Live by the truck load...
Die by the truck load.
The Fresno, CA fire department used manpower and a regular Fresno Co. coroner’s van in this recent 800# case:
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/local&id=6820433
But the Fresno County Coroner needs a new building! (Maggots in walls!):
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/local&id=6823937
Very sad for all involved. Prayers for both she and her family.
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