lady surgically removed from couch
 

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

http://www.wftv.com/newsofthestrange...77/detail.html

STUART, Fla. -- A dramatic rescue ended tragically in Stuart, Florida, a rescue so difficult firefighters say they have never seen anything like it.

It happened late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning at the home of a 600-pound woman who was having trouble breathing. Rescuers went in not knowing how difficult it would be to get her out. 40-year-old Gail Grinds was literally stuck to her couch and had to be removed surgically at the hospital.

Authorities estimate she had been on the couch anywhere from two to five years.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww... grossitating!

Wow, I'd hate to be the surgeon who drew the short straw that day.

That's so sad. Hopefully, she will recover and move on to live a well-rounded and fulfilling life. :)

Well-rounded.

Baaaaaaaaaad.

I'm sure she had terrible bed sores. Someone better get charged w/ negligence.

PnC, she's dead.

This is a ridiculous and outrageous story, and her family ought to be ashamed of themselves for letting her become one with her couch.

God forgive me for laughing at what I just said.

I didn't read the article. Now that is really sad.

I really didn't mean anything by well-rounded. Honestly.

Oh, I definitely didn't think you did, I just wanted to make sure you saw the article.

Simply a sad story my eye.:mad:

The family should not only be ashamed as well some type of charges should be made against them. This is so wrong.

Poor lady:(

That's just horrible. It may be neglect at the end, but she's the one that got herself there to begin with. (don't start flaming me with all the issues about obese people and why they're obese. a lot of people just get fat by themselves.) She's in a better place now, and she doesn't have to deal with her diffuculties here on earth.

Perhaps this lofty article can be moved to the news and politics forum?

-Rudey

deviant side of me: if she had met up with the guy from Nebraska they chould have made a video called "Ton of Fun"

excuse my asking, but how did they get her and the couch transported to the hospital???:confused:

that story is truly mind blowing. how in the world could that happen?

From the article:

"Emergency workers had to remove some sliding glass doors and lift the couch, with Grinds still on it, to a trailer behind a pickup truck. Removing her from the couch would be too painful, since her body was grafted to the fabric. After years of staying put, her skin had literally become one with the sofa and had to be surgically removed."

She was 480 lbs and only 4'10"...there's no way in hell her frame could've supported all that mass.

I heard this story on the radio this morning. Was anyone else wondering how she went to the bathroom during those 4-5 years? Ewww, I don't even want to think about it.

oh. that is what i get for not reading the article:rolleyes:

Neglect?
 

Neglect, are you serious? The only one who should be held accountable is the fat chick herself....c'mon, seriously. Thats' like fat kids suing McDonalds and smokers suing Marlboro.

Hold yourself accountable for your own actions.

Yo mama so fat, that when she wears her Malcom X t-shirt, helicopters try to land on her.

Re: Neglect?
 

Maybe it's not about her diet. Maybe she has a thyroid problem. And even still, it's up to her family to make sure she gets fed, cleaned, turned over every few hours. Just because someone gets emphysema from smoking doesn't mean their family shouldn't take care of them because it's their own fault.

Re: Re: Neglect?
 

And now, who gets to pay for her medical care?

Re: Re: Re: Neglect?
 

The lady is dead!! Dead, because she didn't seek help for herself and dead because her family and friends neglected her. No one needs to worry about that now, do they?!

I believe this was partly her fault. But she had some man looking after her. Why didn't he clean her and the home up? Why didn't he feed her better food (because she obviously wasn't getting up to cook it herself). Why didn't he realize that she was grafted to the couch?? I don't understand how he could go into that house day in and day out and not do something. Not clean, not cook her healthy food, not try and turn her, not called a doctor? He definitly should be charged with negligence.

Hey, don't get me wrong - I have feelings and it is a real shame that this lady let herself get this far, but seriously, the only one who can be blamed for her getting this way, is herself. To say the guy should be held negligent for this is a crime in itself.

I can say Bill Clinton should be held negligent for NOT taking Iraq out in the 90's and allowing tens of thousands of Iraqi's be murdered by Saddam Hussein - but that'd be idiotic.

This is so sad :( Definitely gross and digusting, but still very sad. Poor lady.

Nobody's saying that she's not partly to blame for her condition and her ultimate death, but this guy said he was taking care of her and he obviously wasn't.

What would you do if you put your elderly parents in a home and found out that they weren't being taken care of. They were left to sit in their own filth and they had bed sores and weren't being fed, or cleane dup because they couldn't do it themselves.
I doubt you'd say "well they were old, it's own fault that they couldn't take care of themselves".

Sure she let her self get this way, but maybe if she had someone looking after her properly she could have gotten the help she needed.

very sad to hear that. :(

I'm still trying to fathom how someone can actually be GRAFTED to a couch! I mean what did she do for 6 years?

Absolutely mindblowing.

My guess is she got serious bedsores and the scabs somehow intermixed with the couch fibers. Or something.

That's the impression I got. Since she also couldn't get up to use the bathroom, I can imagine that's an unpleasant situation (to say the very least).

According to the article, there was a man (her husband?) and some children living in that house. That isn't safe or healthy for the children. I'm curious to find out more about this story.

What a sad story. :(

This reminds me of a story involving a 600+ lb woman who hadn't left her apartment in at least 5 years because she was too large to fit through the door. She would eat a whole box of spaghetti with sauce as a snack. They had to use piano movers to get her out of her apartment so she could be taken to the hospital. She died in hospital... :(

How did she get in the apartment?!

That's just sad how that lady spent all those years sitting on a couch... geezus.

She entered the apartment when she was smaller and became larger over the years, I would guess.

Exactly. Apparently one day she just couldn't fit through the door any more, and that was it - she never left the apartment again until the piano movers got her out. Her husband (who was around 400+ lbs himself) took care of her, which included buying copious amounts of groceries for the two of them.

You cannot compare this situation to my parents being in a home, where the home is paid to take care of my family and the contract I signed with them states that they are taken care of, fed, bathed, cleaned...etc. IF that were the case, then there'd be neglect.

However, what boggles my mind is this: How can you say one day, "I just can't get up?". I mean, the time before this one, you sat down and got up - but this time you can't?. How can you just not get up anymore? I think its kind of hilarious.

This truly give meaning to "_______'s (Insert name here) last stand" (i.e. Custer's last stand)

I'm starting to think that maybe this guy wanted to keep her this way.
We don't know anything about her condition other than she was morbidly obese. What if she had a mental illness? What if she had some other kind of physical illness/condition. She had been stuck to this chair for 5 years. What about before?? Her neighbours said they didn't even know she lived there. I think if she had been previously up and about in that house then her neighbours would have know she was there and thought it suspicious that she suddenly disappeared.

Or perhaps the husband wasn't all there? :confused:

If he did unbeknownst to everyone else and was taking care of this woman, he may not have realized right away that she had a problem. Or at least how to go about solving it.

I have never seen the movie but one of the radio Djs this morning compared the whole situation to "Gilbert Grape."

Maybe. Maybe this man (her husband?) wasn't all there.

It's just that some of you sound like you're saying "it's all her fault. She got what she deserved" and no one deserves to live/die like this. If she completely refused help, well than I don't know what to say. Okay, it's her fault. But I can't imagine anyone refusing to be helped out of a condition like this and that this man should have done every thing in his power to help her, I mean for god sakes, he could have at least cleaned up up after she was deficating on herself. I'm surprised these kids of this man or even her didn't die/get sick from some bacterial infection.

ETA: I'm just curious if there have been any updates on this story.

dirty.

i'm telling my fireman friend about this one.