Elderly man freezes to death in home
 

BAY CITY, Mich. - 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, said Belleman. 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.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28858971/

There should be more help for the elderly. What a shame this happened.

There is help but someone has to ask for it.

The alternative is to have some government entity constantly 'checking up' on older folks so that they [the entity] can decide whether or not those seniors are capable of taking care of themselves.

It's a horrible way to die...slow and painful.:(

In the Detroit area, the help is through THAW (The Heat And Warmth fund) that DTE Energy (our electricity provider) sponsors. The problem is, so many people have applied for assistance this year that the fund is practically empty. The big fund raiser for it is the second week in February. DTE has announced that they stopped using those limiters in the Detroit area. They aren't the company that services Bay City. The part of this story that bothers me the most is this:

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.

Apparently you can re-set the device, although, they also said that they shut off that device after 10 days if the bill is not paid.

What's the idea of the limiter? Would it be enough to run your heat?

Any information about where the guy's family was? You might expect a guy in his nineties to have adult children and adult grandchildren. How do you just let grandpa not have heat?

Sure, it's possible he had no one.

ETA: nevermind, it's in the article that he didn't have children: "'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."

The limiter is explained in the article.

It's sad - you would hope he would have family, friends, neighbors, church, SOMEONE who would check in on him. I know some towns have heated shelters - but he probably couldn't drive. :(

It doesn't really answer that question. If it limits your power consumption to a certain point, would that allow your heat to run if the temperature is that cold? I think most of our power bills are mainly heating or air. How limited is limited?

more than likely no....

If you clicked the link I left it goes into detail exactly how the limiter works which would explain why temps were below freezing when they found him.

Nope. Read it. It doesn't explain how much power the limiter gave the guy. It doesn't explain whether it allows a certain amount of consistent limited use, which a way to allow a space heater or something to run but not central heat (and which would shut off power completely if exceeded)OR if it is a wattage or dollar about limit that shuts down the power when that amount total is used.

And further, knowing that temperatures were below freezing when they found him doesn't really have anything to do with anything since we know that the limiter had already shut the power off.

What an awful way to die. :(

Are you expecting a schematic layout of what the limiter does, in that article?

Wow...it's almost academic !!

What aren't you seeing?

The Limiter:
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, said Belleman. 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.

I am not seeing how you can't figure out how this whole thing works and why you need such a detailed explanation as to how this killed him. It says right there in that passage, "It blows like a fuse." What happens when a fuse blows? NO POWER AT ALL.

It doesn't matter how much was getting to the home, the point IS...once the lights went out, everything else went down hill with it...including his life.

Michigan which one can guess at this time of the year is MUCH colder than say...Florida?

Anyone here from Michigan can give us an avg temp for this time of year?

Everything else is really simple.

The man owed on his bill and is 93 years old ...they put the limiter on and once the time passed...POOF NO POWER NO HEAT... once the power went out, it's almost easy to figure out that the temps quickly dropped in his home thereby killing him from hypothermia.

Really sad, but I agree with Kevin, in that I don't know what could have been done. If he had any family, I would imagine they should have been checking on him, but who knows if the family is estranged, etc.

What they said on the local news about the limiter is that it is supposed to allow enough electricity to be used to keep the heat, refrigerator and stove going. I'm not sure how they determine how much that takes, especially since during that time period, our night time lows were -5 or so with day time highs of 8. My furnace ran continuously to keep the house at 68 during that time period. It was bitter bitter cold. Over 400 school districts in the Detroit area had school cancelled for a "cold" day the day before this guy was found. Bay City is about 150 miles north of Detroit, where it was even colder.

ETA: Since he had no kids and was 93 years old, there's a good chance there was no family at all.

I went thru it with my grandmom (not the lack of heat...just the lack of empathy)....she had 2 sons who lived right around the corner from her but I came cross town to check in on her...I was the one who found her when she passed...long...loooonnng story.

Ok...cool, now an expert...please break it down because if I am reading you correctly, then what you are saying contradicts the the news article....the limiter can possibly shut down the power but keeps the essentials running...correct?

OOOOoooorr...is it as the article states it the article that it allows power for a short time but at a certain point shuts it ALL off, including the heat?

That happens a lot; either the children don't want to deal with the hassle, or the elderly person wants to retain their independence and the children stop getting involved.

I took an elder law course last year (for a variety of personal reasons) taught by an elder law practitioner, and some of the stories we would hear were insane.

It is supposed to allow enough electricity to run those things but if you use more than it's set for, it shuts down and all power goes out, even those essential things.

ETA (again): They did say that it can be re-set by the home owner, but nobody knew for sure if the man had been shown how to do that.

EEXXXXXXXAAACTLY.....and once it's gone it was easy to see why this poor fellow froze to death

Thank you. This is what I wanted to know, and it most definitely wasn't covered by the article. Another poster suggested that the information was in the linked article, but alas it wasn't. I wasn't the one who expected it to be.

The point you make is the one I wondered about. What's the point of a limiter if the amount of power you need to keep from freezing to death exceeds the limit?

I don't blame the power company specifically, particularly in a case with an outstanding 1,000 dollar bill, but it does seem that as a society we could certainly do better than this.

You realize that it was only your reading comprehension that ever had this in doubt?

It appears everyone else understood that limiter overload equaled no heat. And please remember that you were the one who suggested that information was in the article that clearly wasn't.

I thought most utility providers had a special program, or at least some sort of forbearance, for people who were elderly, infirm, or who always needed electricity/running water/etc. Basically, ConEd can't turn off someone's power if they are elderly, have babies, or have an illness that requires electricity. I figured most places would have it as well.

It's not that you don't know what particularly happened that bugs me; it's that you are condescending when you don't even grasp what's being asked.

That's because you are asking for too much out of an article that was straight to the point about how he died.


It's a news article, not an eletrical engineering report.

My guess, and of course I don't know, is that the limiter is supposed to be a way around this. You could get "essential" power, but not more. The issue seems to be that with weather this cold, the heat couldn't work without exceeding the amount of limited power.

Honestly, I don't know how I feel about a blanket policy about not cutting off power. I'd be all about requiring a percentage of profits being set aside for assisting those in need, but what seems to sometimes happen (and I'm thinking Atlanta water company here) is that once some customers learn that the utility won't actually be cut off for non-payment, they basically don't pay again for a really long time if ever. (This is kind of a bad example for this particular thread but this covers some corporate clients who went years late:http://www.ajc.com/services/content/...rrisbrown.html)

ETA: sure, the number of people who will meet the criteria you outlined is probably pretty limited, but it seems that there's a better way of dealing with the whole issue rather than just saying certain folks are exempt from getting the utilities cut off.

Go back and read. You will see that you were the one who suggested that all information one might want about the limiter was in the article. It was I who asked the good people of GreekChat "What's the idea of the limiter? Would it be enough to run your heat?"

And as you can now see, AGDee answered my question.

most places do, but think of how many people slip thru the cracks because for some reason or another they don't or are unable to utilize these resources.

I thought it was pretty clear in the article AND I asked AGDEE to clarify since she has more experience.

That is why you have your answer.

Can't break it down to ya much more than that....

That's an interesting take on what unfolded between us in this thread, but if it makes you happy. . . .

On second thought, you are clearly delusional. How do you think AGDee was responding to you. Did you personal message her because you sure didn't ask for clarification here.

I know that you enjoy the personal squabble over who is responsible for whatever misunderstanding you've usually caused, but think I'm done with you here.

I was unaware that we had anything between us...

**shudders**

And I though your inauguration photos were so cute.

You are done but you went back and did all that cutting and pasting...are u satisfied now?

Effin cold. I'd say average is between 10 and 20, though it seems we've been in the low double digits to single digits most of this winter. They said we'd have an Indian winter. Where is it?

Don't think we have ConEd around here, and I'm not sure that Michigan has this law or program. I wish they did though. It really hurts thinking about this man and him sitting there so helpless. I really wish he had passed naturally and that's maybe why he didn't try calling for help or anything, and that he didn't suffer.

And I deleted it. It was too self absorbed for the topic of the thread.

If you made much effort to actually read what people actually posted, you could probably avoid 75% of the crappy exchanges that no one else wants to read.

I apologize, other readers, for getting sucked in.

Once I'm in my 80s, I want to be in a swanky retirement home, with lots of HEAT.

Yeah, whatever it program we try to use, this outcome is unacceptable.

The moral that I'm taking from this story is that I should have kids and treat them well because one day they'll be the thing that keeps me from freezing to death in my house.

I guess this appeal is dependent on the homes that you've been to. My husband's grandmother was in a place so nice we envied her, but it was expensive.

As someone else, Kevin and KSigKid maybe, pointed out, it's a hard issue to deal with. Unless you have some sort of mandatory program to check up on people who say they don't want to be checked up on, I don't know how we can make sure that we take good care of the elderly.

It seems like the best bet is just doing unto others. . . I'll look in on my elderly neighbor because I would want others to do the same for my parents or me.

True. I can't help but wonder if he had any family and if so, where they were.

There is no way in the world I (or my parents/aunts/uncles) could know that my grandma or grandpa didn't have heat and not do something about it.