Posted on 04/18/2005 10:21:25 AM PDT by kingattax
HAMPTON, Va. (AP) -- A 75-year-old woman who lay trapped in her bathtub for five days toasted her rescue with a cola and a cigarette. Jane Fromal suffered slight dehydration even though she said she ran tap water to drink during the ordeal.
Doctors said they would keep her at the hospital for a few days to make sure her muscles were working right.
Fromal drew a bath Saturday afternoon to nurse a sore tailbone.
"I thought I'd get in the tub and soak," she said Thursday as she rested at Riverside Regional Medical Center. "I didn't know I was going to soak for five days."
She tried to lift herself up a number of times but was unable to do so. Her elbows and forearms were left raw and sore.
Fromal didn't sleep much during the five days. "How can you sleep in a bathtub?"
She finally got help when a neighbor's grandson noticed newspapers piling up in her driveway and insisted his grandmother call Fromal's family.
Shaun Foley, 21, tried banging on her doors and windows and noticed that her mailbox was stuffed.
James Mountjoy, Fromal's grandson-in-law, burst through a locked storm door. Family members found her in the bathroom off her upstairs bedroom on Wednesday evening.
After donning a warm robe, being lifted to safety and drinking a little water, Fromal didn't ask for food. She wanted one of her Parliament 100s and a Coke.
It wasn't the first time Fromal, who has a little trouble with her legs, has been stuck in the bathtub. A few weeks ago she lay in the tub all day.
Fromal's family plans to add railings and a tub chair in her bathroom
I think a brilliant marketing ploy would be to show an "old person" who has fallen down, and can't get up, using the device say, "I've fallen and I can't get out" or some similar approach.
Tried to give my mother-in-law a life alert. She wouldn't use it. No fool like an old fool.
That would be a real geezer pleaser. I'm looking to market the Geezer Squeezer. (Modesty prevents me from describing it.)
Fromal's family plans to add railings and a tub chair in her bathroom.
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I urge all Freepers with elderly parents to not wait for a tragedy, add the rails now!
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My brother and I had them installed for our late mother...they were a godsend. Even taking a shower can be difficult or even dangerous for the elderly, particularly when they lose a lot of their mobility and strength.
My parents move here last year and bought a condo. Mom is 82, Dad is 85. We insisted the builder install the bars in both bathrooms. Beats the hell out of a broken hip.
My recollection is that they were downright cheap too!
PLEASE pass these out before posting a pic of Helen the Hun
My recollection is that they were downright cheap too!
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I don't think it was that expensive for us either. And where I live, there are programs where, if the senior citizen meets certian income guidelines, you can have contractors come and fit your home with various assisting devices at little or no cost.
My mother wouldn't get one after she had her first stroke. After she fell and broke her hip and laid on the floor for several hours she changed her mind. She used it when she tripped and broke her arm.
I had a neighbor who fainted in the shower. She was found days later, water running all over her house. She was elderly, sick, and died of a brain tumor in the hospital a few weeks later. Smoker.
So sad.
OH MAN, I could have gone all day without that floating visual!
Some people have to learn the hard way 8-)
How do you get dehydrated in the bathtub?
I read this the only day, and one poster said "It's time to take away her tub."
I can't for the life of me understand how someone can be that alone that they would lay for 5 days before someone missed her.
I read about an older woman last year who was nude, sitting on her toilet, fell off the seat and laid there for 12 days! On cold tile.
I just shudder to think that people aren't missed when this happens to them. It is very sad indeed.
When I came home from the hospital after open heart surgery, I tried to get out of my bathtub and couldn't! My feet kept slipping. I put a towel on the bottom and that didn't help either. My empathies for her. If they know she does this, why doesn't someone stay with her when she wants to bathe? Surely someone in the family, or a neighbor, could be there to help.
I think she was just too weak to pull herself out. I read another article that said her arms were bruised from trying to life herself and her legs were too weak to do much good.
She really does need a shower type stall where she no longer has to climb up and into a tub. Very dangerous for the old folks.
Wow...thats just wrong...er...hideous.
the first thing i noticed was her "coke and a cigarette"....then my first thought was exactly what you just pointed out.....5 whole days ! unreal
bad humor by me.....this really was a serious situation.. i'm glad she's ok
The perverted linguist is in a quandary, etiquette has him stifling a chuckle...
Sorry about your mom, but the pickin's slim these days for a bit of lightheartedness.
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