Posted on 10/06/2007 12:15:35 PM PDT by yorkie
Carol Gotbaum was already dead by the time her husband, Noah, made frantic telephone calls to the airport where she had been arrested to try to warn the authorities that she was “suicidal” and “alcohol abusive,” the Phoenix Police Department said on Friday.
According to preliminary information from the Aviation Communication Center at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Mr. Gotbaum’s first call was received at 4:39 p.m., a little more than an hour after his wife had been pronounced dead, said Sgt. Andy Hill, a spokesman for the Phoenix police.
The authorities released a statement Friday night saying that they reviewed all phone calls received by the airport after 12 noon on Sept. 28 and confirmed the time of Mr. Gotbaum’s first call. This confirms as well that Mrs. Gotbaum was dead before that first call.
Transcripts of Mr. Gotbaum’s three calls from New York, released on Thursday as part of a police report on Ms. Gotbaum’s death, provide a chilling account of a husband’s efforts to reach his wife. He had last heard from her hours earlier, and she was upset and angry about missing a connecting flight to Tucson, the transcripts indicate.
They show that Mr. Gotbaum grew frustrated because airport operators were unable to give him information about his wife’s status.
During his final conversation with an airport operator, Mr. Gotbaum said: “I have no idea where she is. I haven’t talked to her. All I know is what you’ve told me and what I imagine has happened.”
What Mr. Gotbaum did not know was that his wife was dead...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Feeling of jumpiness or nervousness
Feeling of shakiness
Anxiety
Irritability or easily excited
Emotional volatility, rapid emotional changes
Depression
Fatigue
Difficulty with thinking clearly
Bad dreams
Mild to moderate physical symptoms:
Headache - general, pulsating
Sweating, especially the palms of the hands or the face
Nausea
Vomiting
Loss of appetite
Insomnia, sleeping difficulty
Paleness
Rapid heart rate (palpitations)
Eyes, pupils different size (enlarged, dilated pupils)
Skin, clammy
Abnormal movements
Tremor of the hands
Involuntary, abnormal movements of the eyelids
Severe symptoms:
A state of confusion and hallucinations (visual) — known as delirium tremens
Agitation
Fever
Convulsions
“Black outs” — when the person forgets what happened during the drinking episode
Long term Stage 4 alcoholics in withdrawal may experience death from loss of autonomous body functions.
A shame all around.
So true. They are a wealthy family and could have afforded a private nurse to accompany her. Instead they essentially dumped her onto the airline, the airport, and the local police without providing any information about her condition. Now, like Doty’s Daddy, they’re trying to blame anybody but themselves, when they’re the ones who actually bear the blame.
The woman threw things (her cell phone for one) at innocent bystanders which struck them. I’d handcuff her too, and I’m not “the cops.”
“What I couldn’t understand from the beginning is, if she was “that” unstable, why was she flying alone?”
the husband had to stay home to take care of the 3 kids.
He drove her to the airport and walked her to the gate.
It seems odd to me that someone who was obviously out of control would be left alone like that.
no matter what....she did not deserve to die.....if you have people restrained the general rule is you watch them continually when you are unfamiliar with that person....although I am thinking now that she was already a goner by the time they put her in that cell.....
She was hurting others (in one case, she threw a cell phone which hit a bystander in the face). What were they supposed to do? What would you have done? Let her run amuck in the airport until someone was SERIOUSLY hurt?
Sh*t happens in life. If the Gotbaums were Republicans this story wouldn’t even have made the papaers. They ought to get over it and move on, just like they tell the rest of us to do.
One of the earlier threads on this woman had a post that said that a friend was supposed to have met her at the airport where she had to wait between flights, but didn’t show up...that’s when Mrs. Gotbaum went to an airport lounge and got drunk.
“One of the earlier threads on this woman had a post that said that a friend was supposed to have met her at the airport where she had to wait between flights, but didn’t show up...that’s when Mrs. Gotbaum went to an airport lounge and got drunk.”
I didn’t see it in the news today, but time will bring out all the details I guess.
His words will come back to haunt him when he tries to sue.
If she was suicidal..WHY THE HELL DID THEY LET HER GET ON THE PLANE ALONE???? More fodder for the State of AZ.
“They did what they deemed appropriate at the time.”
I have no complaint about anything they did from what I’ve read, except for leaving her alone with just enough chain to hang herself.
“He drove her to the airport and walked her to the gate.”
Not true...he walked her as far as security.
dsc: According to reports and to video she "went off". How do YOU handle wildly combative people without hurting them, allowing them to hurt themselves, or getting hurt yourself?
cherry, your point is good. How much does it cost to make sure that every holding cell has a monitor and every monitor has an officer who knows what to do watching it? And is your community willing to pay that cost? And if the money and the staffing aren't there should they just leave people alone, to run around the airport throwing cell phones and making trouble?
If we want to compare police work to the perfect, it will always come up short. It certainly gets my attention that there was no camera in the cell or officer watching a monitor. It would be interesting to know whose budget decision that was. But you can bet it was a budget decision, at the bottom. Cops don't make budget decisions. They suffer with them.
But what we have is communities hiring cops, paying them too little, not training or equipping them enough and then exposing them to opprobrium and lawsuits if they do their job under less than optimal circumstances. And then people on FR are shocked, SHOCKED, when cops do anything less than absolutely perfectly.
When you enter the realm of violence, violence is what often happens. People get hurt. Some die. Few of the good guys are happy with those outcomes. Few are given what they need to lessen the frequency of those outcomes.
First thought is that she should have been restrained, as she was, and EMS should have been called, so she could have received immediate medical attention. Narcotic antagonists and sedatives are generally helpful, until someone can put all of the pieces together.
The type of behavior she was exhibiting was symptomatic of some problems that can be very dangerous. Maybe that is what they had planned, I don’t know. I would think that enyone trained in law enforcement would know that.
Had she been sedated and evaluated by a doctor, she might be better off, but maybe not. She was in a pretty bad state, and when someone is that strung out, there aren’t many guarantees.
Well said, MD.
Grrrrrrrrrrrr, ah, thanks! Thanks very much!
Ummm...not Michael Jackson.
My sister moved to Germany and lost 20 pounds because of eating unprocessed foods.
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