480-Pound Woman Dies After Six Years On Couch

ID:187974
 
Aug 12 2004, 2:02 pm
"480-Pound Woman Dies After Six Years On Couch


STUART, Fla. -- A 480-pound Martin County woman has died after emergency workers tried to remove her from the couch where she had remained for about six years.

Gayle Laverne Grinds, 40, died Wednesday, after a failed six-hour effort to dislodge her from the couch in her home. Workers say the home was filthy, and Grinds was too large to get up from the couch to even use the bathroom.

Everyone going inside the home had to wear protective gear. The stench was so powerful they had to blast in fresh air.


A preliminary autopsy on the the four-foot, ten-inch woman lists the cause of death as "morbid obesity." But officials want to know more about the circumstances inside the home.


Investigators say Grinds lived with a man named Herman Thomas, who says he tried to take care of her the best he could. He has told them he tried repeatedly to get her up, but simply couldn't. No charges have been filed, but officials are looking into negligence issues.

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 died at Martin Memorial Hospital South, still attached to the couch.

Neighbors say they had no idea Grinds lived at the duplex, though they had seen Thomas and some children outside."

(Original source of article: here)

Wow. She was like me, except 325 pounds heavier. :)

~Kujila



Aug 12 2004, 3:44 pm
What an interesting world we live in ... pedophiles ... murderers ... TV fanatics ... and gluttons. Yep.
Aug 12 2004, 3:47 pm
I think possibly her cause of death might have been failure of the lungs due to being in the same place too long. That can happen to anyone, but I dunno.
Aug 12 2004, 6:41 pm
Your four foot-ten?
Aug 12 2004, 6:47 pm
In response to Asguard
There's a difference between a glutton and a moron who doesn't even move.
Aug 12 2004, 6:48 pm (Edited on Aug 13 2004, 5:45 pm)
In response to Garthor
She should have had a bigger couch custom made :)

--Goz
Aug 12 2004, 9:34 pm
In response to Goz
...so her butt could graft to that instead of a store-bought couch lol

~Kujila
Aug 13 2004, 8:04 am
Somewhere, right at this moment, someone is writing the most terrifying Scotchgard commercial ever.