Obese man dies after 8 months in home recliner

[Contrary1]

"COLUMBIA, S.C. - When an ambulance brought Daniel Webb home from the hospital after he hurt his knee in March, paramedics warned the then 550-pound man he probably wouldn't be able to get up from his recliner if they put him there, his wife said.

Webb told them to leave him there anyway. He would sit in that recliner, slowly dying, for the next eight months. Finally, paramedics were called back to his Greenwood home on Wednesday because he was in a lot of pain.

Webb's body was physically stuck to the power recliner and firefighters had to cut him from the chair to take him to the hospital. He died a few hours later, his body covered with sores and a "very bad odor," according to a police report.

Webb, 33, didn't ask for help for all those months, because he was ashamed and didn't have health insurance, said his wife, Ada..."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34050673/ns/us_news-life/

[JI7]

1. why did they say he wouldn't be able to get up from there ?

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

2. Physics.

:shrug: 550 to 800 pound people with bad knees generally have huge difficulty moving without a considerable amount of assistance.

[K8-EEE]

3. plus he would be too big for the chair...stuck in it!

How sad!!

[Posteritatis]

9. Stuck *to* the chair implies worse problems than just the weight.. ugh. (nt)

[HipChick]

4. Wasn't there an obese person whose skin grew into the sofa

[joshcryer]

8. That was a Nip/Tuck episode...

...sad episode too.

[dugaresa]

22. it was based off of a real event

http://www.wftv.com/news/3643877/detail.html

[juno jones]

30. One relatively recent real life event featured a toilet seat. Ugh. n/t

[Beregond2]

5. Meanwhile, his wife kept bringing him food of course.

That's what always gets me in these cases. How is she not guilty of manslaughter, at the least?

[Electric Monk]

7. I had the same thought while you were posting that

I took more time writing my post though, trying to phrase it to make sure nobody was offended.



/I got jumped on here last night for posting a joke Jon Stewart told on The Daily Show

[Electric Monk]

6. Somebody kept bringing him food, or he would have lost weight

Morbid obesity most often involves co-dependants as well, from what I've read and seen.

[LostInAnomie]

10. He gained 250 lbs in 8 months!?

That is fucking insane. All his wife would have had to have done is not bring him food all the damn time. Letting him gain that that much weight is unconscionable.

[katkat]

12. yeah

A perfect opportunity to only bring him healthful food and a reasonable amount of calories. If he made her life hell for doing that, she could have left the house between meals.

[Obamanaut]

17. I read in another thread that calories in vs calories out doesn't affect

weight gain/loss. It's either genetics or the body knows 'intuitively' what it's own 'set point' is. :sarcasm:

[Barack_America]

29. If people can create their own energy, our energy crisis might be solved.

The laws of thermodynamics will have been broken.

[Heidi]

11. Recliners: not only ugly, but lethal. (nt)

[katkat]

13. in defense of recliners

Very comfortable. Remember the last episode of Frasier?

[Echo In Light]

16. Idiocracy

[Sanity Claws]

14. So eight months of excrement were there?

Or did he stop eating?

[crazyjoe]

15. he was ashamed he didn't have health insurance

so he gained 250 more disgusting pounds, shat all over himself, and committed recliner suicide? Me thinks he had more problems than a hurt knee.

[FarCenter]

18. Possibly a freeper?

Webb died on the couple's second anniversary. They met four years ago on MySpace, and Ada Webb said she didn't see a man who weighed more than 500 pounds, but instead saw a guy who loved the Lord and had a big heart.

"I had the worst anniversary yesterday I ever had, but I know he had the best one he ever had because he's with Jesus now," she said.

<snip>

"Everybody kept telling us, if you get here, we'll help you. We didn't have no way of getting him up, and nobody was willing to come help us," Ada Webb said. "He just kind of said, 'it's in God's hands' at that point."

Daniel Webb spent the rest of his days playing with his four dogs and talking about religion to other people on the Internet.

[azmouse]

20. I guess this guy never heard that gluttony is one of the deadly sins.

:shrug: Or he didn't care.

[ecstatic]

19. That's really sad... (RIP). If he was stuck, I'm surprised

he didn't lose a considerable amount of weight during the 8 months.

[Mari333]

21. this really bothers me because I see it happening in my own biological family

my brother. He is so large he walks with a cane and he is much younger than I am. he has huge sores on his legs and has had vascular surgery. He sits because his legs hurt all the time.

I am almost 60 and he is just 50. He was thin all his life, and then wham, hes huge within the last 10 yrs or so.
I am thin, so it makes no sense. The only difference is that I dont ear what he eats.

I honestly dont know what to do at this point, except love him and hope that he loses the weight but its like a vicious cycle now.

[Avalux]

23. Very, very sad. How tragic family members didn't intervene.

They kept feeding him, right there in that chair. Not only that, but I find it hard to believe his wife/others didn't SMELL the infected pressure ulcers that oozed and 'stuck' him to the chair. That smell is horrific.

It wasn't a matter of him asking for help, which the poor man was powerless to do. It was a matter of his family intervening to save his life, which they obviously didn't do.

[redqueen]

25. After a relatively short period of exposure to a bad smell...

it stops registering.

There were likely all kinds of mental issues going on in that family.

Very sad.

[TwilightGardener]

24. Yikes. How the hell did she clean the chair under him when he pissed and shat himself?

I'm betting she couldn't. That had to stink to high heaven--and the skin breakdown and sores...ew.

[Taitertots]

26. Behind every immobile obese person

there is another even sicker person feeding them. I suspect WAY more is going on in these households than just one person eating too much. The feeder is keeping them so they can have control over them. Keeping them so they can "care" for them. It is like the people who slowly poison someone so the person needs them to care for them.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

27. Absolutely!

These folks don't get and stay immobilized without the help of family members bringing them the food -- classic CODA behavior. When I watch shows like "Big Medicine" and others featuring morbidly obese people who have become all but immobilized, there is a very heavy vibe of either the obese person wanting to remain that way to keep themselves "safe" and taken care of or doing it to please an overly emeshed Mom that wants them to remain a child that needs tending forever.

Incredibly sad. :(

[Owl]

28. wow. just wow.