Another victim of the health care system

[AlphaCentauri]

Obese SC man dies after 8 months in home recliner

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. He slept and used the bathroom in his chair and she cleaned it every day. The former preacher would post sermons online from the chair, and it wasn't long before he decided he was ready to go home to the Lord, she said.

"After he sat there in that one spot for a week, he was embarrassed. It was like he already knew what was going to happen," Ada Webb said.

....

Daniel Webb drove school buses for nearly 15 years, until his weight made it impossible. His health kept getting worse, and Ada Webb said she begged hospital officials to keep him after doctors treated his knee injury in March. But the couple had no way to pay and were sent home.

For his first few weeks home, Daniel Webb was open to the idea of seeing someone. Getting to them was the problem.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gPsvd0yS4M-wlskLRYH-P1bMGm2AD9C2TK100

[gratuitous]

1. Hell of a way to die

Totally incapacitated and immobilized, embarrassed to be seen by anyone except his wife, no insurance, and knowing that at age 33, he's going to die. But by all means, let's make sure we spend trillions to kill a bunch of people half way around the world, and most decidedly not have health care for all our citizens. Why, we might not be able to blow up as many wedding parties if we go around keeping our citizens healthy and alive!

[pansypoo53219]

2. nobody made him eat the sammiches

550?

[gratuitous]

3. Yes, he was morbidly obese

So?

With proper medical attention, perhaps he could have gotten better. Instead, without insurance, he came home for the last time knowing somewhere in his brain that the recliner the paramedics were putting him in might as well have been his coffin. But if it assuages your conscience to make anonymous and puerile jokes about "sammiches" instead of recognizing what a shameful situation this is for our country, then I'd say that at least Mr. Webb died with a shred of his humanity, which may be more than could be said for you.

[AlphaCentauri]

4. No preventive medicine and genetics could cause obesity n/t