Did a search, didn't find the topic, hope it's not a dupe.

Couch-bound woman's death raises questions
By Jose Lambiet

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

At 478 pounds, Gayle Grinds had become the invisible woman.

Her neighbors never knew Grinds was among them, even though she lived in her small, fading, green row house in the Golden Gate community south of Stuart for 10 years.

Social services agencies hadn't heard of her; Grinds got by on Social Security checks while suffering from life-threatening obesity. Visitors rarely came. Grinds lived in a squalid home with a man unable to care for her, stuck too far from the stove to cook, too far from the bathroom to take a shower.


Strangely, there is no trace of Grinds in the 1981 Martin County High School yearbook, even though she attended that school for four years. Her name isn't there. Her picture is missing.

It is as if she never existed.

"My mom didn't like anyone taking pictures of her," said Grinds' 14-year-old adopted daughter, Deanna. "She was a proud woman."

Grinds would have turned 40 on Aug. 27. She died early Aug. 11 at Martin Memorial Hospital South. Her case was so disturbing that some members of the ER crew that night sought counseling, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

Grinds had been lying on a dirty burgundy-and-gray fabric couch in her living room for most of the past six years when family members called 911 late on Aug. 10 to report that Grinds was having difficulty breathing. Unwashed for months, lying in her own excrement, couch fabric intertwined with the skin of her back, Grinds screamed in pain when the rescuers, clad in protective gear, tried to lift her.

They had to fabricate a makeshift stretcher big enough to accommodate Grinds, a 4-foot-10 woman who weighed 140 pounds more than the 7-foot-1 Shaquille O'Neal, but they couldn't fit her into an ambulance. With Grinds still fused to the couch, they laid her on a borrowed trailer pulled by a pickup. Surgeons never had time to separate her from the couch. She died less than two hours after being hospitalized.

While her death certificate lists "morbid obesity" as the cause of her passing, police said they are investigating the circumstances surrounding Grinds' care. Criminal neglect charges, they said, are possible.

Humiliation began with a fall

Earlier in her life, things were different for Grinds.

In her 20s, she was visible in the community where she lived at the time, a blighted, high-crime complex of $100-a-month rental units in East Stuart. Gregarious, already 300 pounds but mobile, Grinds was known as a great cook who loved to pass around her fried chicken and fish. She had a giant appetite, but she told friends a thyroid problem made her obese.

Former neighbors said she already lived with Herman Thomas, a roofer who was with her until the end. At the time, Thomas was bringing home enough of a paycheck to buy a small Japanese car that Grinds used to drive residents to the supermarket or church.

"Gayle Grinds?" repeated Alice Robertson, a longtime resident of the Tarpon Commons complex. "Everybody knew her. She was a nice lady. You couldn't help liking her. She was well-adjusted. You could hear her laugh all over the complex. She stood out because she was so big."

Although she didn't have any children of her own, Grinds asked a local judge to award her custody of a 9-year-old boy and 3-year-old girl orphaned when Grinds' younger sister, Jessie, died at 25. She also was known to watch other residents' children.

"She was a good mother to us," said Deanna, the girl whose custody Grinds was awarded in 1992. "She was buying us stuff all the time. She taught me to cook."

About the same time, however, Grinds' life changed in the few seconds it takes to lose one's footing.

Years of humiliation started with a fall.

"She was just walking in the complex, and she fell in mud," Robertson said. "I remember waiting for the ambulance with her. She was in pain. She was lying in mud, and no one could lift her up until the ambulance came. She broke her leg pretty bad."

According to Robertson and another neighbor at the complex, John Harris, it took Grinds almost a year to recover. While she was laid up with pins in her left leg, she gained another 100 pounds. For a time, she got around in a wheelchair, then with the help of a walker. Eventually, she became mobile again, and in 1994 moved a few miles south to Golden Gate, into her last home.

Couch an island of no return

In 1998, said Vivian Kendricks, Grinds' older sister, she fell again and broke the same leg. She sought treatment and recovered, Kendricks said, but never left her couch again.

"There is one thing that kept my sister on that couch — fear," Kendricks said. "She had been in such pain when she broke her leg that she was too afraid it would happen again."

Thomas, Grinds' longtime boyfriend, could not be located after Grinds' death. But several of Grinds' acquaintances said he couldn't take care of her — except to get her basic groceries.

Basically jobless, Thomas looks 20 years older than his 54 years. Criminal records show he has been arrested on drug- and alcohol-related charges, including a DUI on his bicycle in 2002. He was described by one Golden Gate neighbor as someone who did little more than sit alone in the yard for most of the day, drinking bottles of Budweiser while Grinds lay on the couch.

Then, just as Grinds needed help the most, relatives also were in trouble. Her younger brother, Clifford Grinds, was arrested 14 times in Martin County in the past 20 years on charges ranging from cocaine possession to assault and robbery. He was sentenced to a total of 14 years in prison. And Marcus, the son that Grinds adopted from her sister, last year was arrested for allegedly trying to shoplift a camera from a Stuart Wal-Mart.

One cousin in an ideal position to help said she didn't know about Grinds' problems. When Grinds adopted her niece and nephew, court documents show, she listed her cousin Evelyn Harris as the person who would take care of them if she died. That cousin is a family support worker for the state's Department of Children and Families in Stuart, which has a unit charged with taking care of adults who can't take care of themselves. By law, DCF workers must report cases of children or adults in need of services.

Harris, a 23-year DCF veteran, hung up on a reporter when asked about Grinds. Later, she put out a statement through the department's public relations office.

"I am deeply saddened by the loss of my cousin," she wrote. "I had no knowledge of the condition of my cousin or the home, as I had not been inside the home for more than five years. Had I known about the condition of my cousin and the home, I would of course have done something."

All of Harris' work evaluations at DCF showed performance ranging from "exceeding expectations" to "outstanding."

DCF later issued this statement by Christine Demetriades, a DCF public information officer: "After looking into this matter, the Department of Children and Families has no reason to believe there was any misconduct on the part of our employee Ms. Harris. Ms. Harris has always been a very capable and caring employee."

Deplorable living conditions

On her couch — mostly watching television, Kendricks said — Grinds sank into depression, according to an acquaintance who visited her three years ago. The home became so squalid that some of Grinds' friends who used her to watch their kids stopped taking them there.

The stench of stale urine and feces still emanated from the home two days after Grinds died, reaching the street 90 feet away, and at least two adjacent properties. Scrawny cats jumped in and out of the house through a broken floor-level window.

When the fire-rescue crew arrived at the house, they found a sparsely furnished home with no air conditioning and letters piled on a table with cockroaches eating their way through the envelopes. Around the space where Grinds' couch had been, they saw dozens of empty Publix soda cans strewn on the floor. Empty bags of Doritos, Ruffles chips, an ice-cream cone wrapper and rotting, maggot-infested oranges had been thrown on the floor among unwashed pants, T-shirts and underwear.

A television and stereo equipment were on the floor — bare concrete in some parts. In the kitchen, the fridge wasn't working and contained several plates of decomposing food. Two bedrooms had mattresses on the floor, including one partly burned, among clothes, paperwork and more food wrappers.

Two of Grinds' three surviving siblings couldn't explain why rescuers found her in such a shape. Brother Clifford Grinds, now out of jail and living 5 miles away, said he loved his sister.

"She was the sweetest person I knew," he said. "If we knew things were so bad, we would have done something." He declined to comment further.

And sister Vivian Kendricks said she did visit Grinds once in a while, washing her on her couch and cooking for her. She didn't remember the last time she saw Grinds and said nothing seemed to be wrong with her lifestyle.

"I know she started feeling real bad two weeks ago," Kendricks said. "But she had asthma. My sister was hard-headed. She just wouldn't get off that couch."

Kendricks said people in her neighborhood of East Stuart have been looking at her differently since the news spread.

"Some say we should go to jail for letting her deteriorate," the 44-year-old Kendricks said. "Why should we go to jail? Gayle was a grown woman. She could make her own decisions."

so did the lady have some kind of disease or was she just a lazy fatass?

just..damn

In her 20s, she was visible in the community where she lived at the time, a blighted, high-crime complex of $100-a-month rental units in East Stuart. Gregarious, already 300 pounds but mobile, Grinds was known as a great cook who loved to pass around her fried chicken and fish. She had a giant appetite, but she told friends a thyroid problem made her obese.

Please tell me she isn't some stereotypical fat black welfare woman...

Quoted: so did the lady have some kind of disease or was she just a lazy fatass?

I believe it is the latter.

Sounds like an old Jerry Springer episode.  I honestly can't imagine how someone gets to that point.  She was already dangerously overweight at 300 pounds.  She should have gotten help then.

Uh, personal responsibility folks.  It is an amazing concept.  THis woman wanted to live the way she did, so she did.  

Oh, and consequences also, personal responsbility and consequences.

The one thing that I don't understand about this story is how someone who couldn't even move off the couch stayed so heavy.  Now we find out why...

Around the space where Grinds' couch had been, they saw dozens of empty Publix soda cans strewn on the floor. Empty bags of Doritos, Ruffles chips, an ice-cream cone wrapper and rotting, maggot-infested oranges had been thrown on the floor among unwashed pants, T-shirts and underwear.

Obviously someone was feeding her a bad diet and plenty of it...otherwise she should have wasted away like someone in a concentration camp.  Thyroid problem or not eating less calories than you burn will always result in you losing weight.  The guy taking care of her should be charged with negligence for both feeding her a poor diet and not seeking medical/social services attention for her when it was obvious that she could no longer take care of herself.

Quoted: The one thing that I don't understand about this story is how someone who couldn't even move off the couch stayed so heavy.  Now we find out why... Around the space where Grinds' couch had been, they saw dozens of empty Publix soda cans strewn on the floor. Empty bags of Doritos, Ruffles chips, an ice-cream cone wrapper and rotting, maggot-infested oranges had been thrown on the floor among unwashed pants, T-shirts and underwear. Obviously someone was feeding her a bad diet and plenty of it...otherwise she should have wasted away like someone in a concentration camp.  Thyroid problem or not eating less calories than you burn will always result in you losing weight.  The guy taking care of her should be charged with negligence for both feeding her a poor diet and not seeking medical/social services attention for her when it was obvious that she could no longer take care of herself.

So your lifestyle choice is now somone elses responsibility?

It is too bad someone took the time to feed her at all, eventually she would have gotten to the point of moving.

Quoted: so did the lady have some kind of disease or was she just a lazy fatass?

Harsh words from one so young............

So, is Rosie O'Donnell going to play the lead role in the made for TV movie?

Quoted: Quoted: so did the lady have some kind of disease or was she just a lazy fatass? Harsh words from one so young............

it was a question dummy.

since she apparently had no disease that made her that way beyond her control, she takes the definition of worthless, lazy fatass to a whole new level. what a waste of oxygen she was.

...including a DUI on his bicycle in 2002

WTF? Is that for real? "Driving" a Bicycle?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: so did the lady have some kind of disease or was she just a lazy fatass? Harsh words from one so young............ it was a question dummy. since she apparently had no disease that made her that way beyond her control, she takes the definition of worthless, lazy fatass to a whole new level. what a waste of oxygen she was.

She had a giant appetite, but she told friends a thyroid problem made her obese....<Snip>ETA:...Empty bags of Doritos, Ruffles chips, an ice-cream cone wrapper and rotting, maggot-infested oranges had been thrown on the floor...

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: so did the lady have some kind of disease or was she just a lazy fatass? Harsh words from one so young............ it was a question dummy. since she apparently had no disease that made her that way beyond her control, she takes the definition of worthless, lazy fatass to a whole new level. what a waste of oxygen she was. She had a giant appetite, but she told friends a thyroid problem made her obese.

yeah, but since it says she "told friends" rather than "she had" it makes it seem like she was lying....?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: so did the lady have some kind of disease or was she just a lazy fatass? Harsh words from one so young............ it was a question dummy. since she apparently had no disease that made her that way beyond her control, she takes the definition of worthless, lazy fatass to a whole new level. what a waste of oxygen she was. She had a giant appetite, but she told friends a thyroid problem made her obese. yeah, but since it says she "told friends" rather than "she had" it makes it seem like she was lying....?

I'm under the impression that if she did have a medical condition, the media would have played up that angle and made sure that SOMEONE was sue-able for this gross negligence.  Since there was no mention of any medical conditions (other than her telling friends it was a thyroid problem)  and considering the junk food wrapers all over the "home," I' m writing it off as "just a lazy fatass."

Well, I don't know how to feel about this. Family should have helped, at least made the effort to get some measure of professional help for them. Pretty sad when family just lets you rot. Then again some folks are beyond help but they could have Baker Acted her and she would have had become a ward of the State until she grecovered. On the same note, there are other people, children, elders out there in the same conditions this very minute. Was long ago on an episode of COPS, that they took a woman out of her trailer who was literally living in garbage. Dead cats and all. Obviously, when someone is like that, they've lost their minds and abilty to think rationally.

Quoted: ...including a DUI on his bicycle in 2002 WTF? Is that for real? "Driving" a Bicycle?

Not to hijack this thread but some states dont differentiate vehicles. So anything that moves you besides your own two feet could be considered driving.

[this thread is worthless without pics] [/this thread is worthless without pics]

Quoted: So your lifestyle choice is now somone elses responsibility?

This is really the question, isn't it?  Is it right for someone to be charged with "criminal negligence" in a case like this?

Quoted: ...including a DUI on his bicycle in 2002 WTF? Is that for real? "Driving" a Bicycle?

Technically a bike is a "motor vehicle" (at least in my state). You're supposed to ride on the street (not a major thoroughfare mind you), and signal when you make turns or stop. I know not everybody does this kind of stuff but when I used to ride my bike around a lot, I stayed right on the painted line (if it wasn't a side street) and signaled every turn.

As to the rest of the story, it is very sad. But someone brought her food. Some people have addictive personalities. It's in their nature. Some smoke too much, some drink, some eat. They don't know the word "moderation" in those activities. So she had a mental handicap in that area... and someone (the people feeding her and supporting her obesity) should have compensated for that. I don't care if she was whining 24/7... People too fat to get up on their own (and smaller frankly, I see some big people at Sam's Club all the time) shouldn't be fed tons of crap food.

wasn't she an arfcommer?, i heard this somewhere

Sounds like her and most of her family were just welfare lovers. She should have gotten a job a long time ago and got off that lazy ass.

Grinds had been lying on a dirty burgundy-and-gray fabric couch in her living room for most of the past six years when family members called 911 late on Aug. 10 to report that Grinds was having difficulty breathing. Unwashed for months, lying in her own excrement, couch fabric intertwined with the skin of her back, Grinds screamed in pain when the rescuers, clad in protective gear, tried to lift her.

When I first heard the story on the radio, they said that the medical personnel were UNABLE to enter the house initially because the stench was so strong. They had to vent the house and put a blower in to force outside air into the house, then could only enter wearing breathing appartus.

Because her flesh had fused to the fabric of the couch, she essentially had become one with the couch, which had doubled as a latrine for appearently quite some time.

Horrid. Horrible. On so many levels.

Before we start attaching racial tags to this situation, let's not forget it happens elsewhere, too, to white people in "good" neighborhoods. Even here in the governmentally-benificent Nanny State AKA Massachusetts. (See the articles below.)

Of course, with all the reliance up here on govt. help, everybody assumed the police would deal with it. And deal with it they did. Once they had, everybody forgot about it, since it was no longer their responsibility, and adjusted to the new reality of a derelict house.  This of course, was long before they discovered a body, dead for four years.

I do remember reading about this a lot a few years ago, because it happened about 15 miles away from me. She was apparently pretty strange, and used to irritate her neighbors a lot with phone calls at odd hours, and had a house filled to the ceiling with stacked newspapers and bags of old groceries. And not a pleasant person to deal with, although people used to look after her yard so that the spillover of weeds would not get on their property, lowering THEIR property values.....

Everybody figured she'd died, and the will/property was in probate (happens a lot here), or that she was in a nursing home out of her mind, and that nobody knew or cared about the house.

She'd never married, and had inherited the house, retired from a clerical position with the phone company about twenty years before she died. She had no close friends from there who were still alive (if indeed, she had any while there), and had alienated everybody in her family with the quirks of her personality. Her closest relative was a cousin (the man below is misdentified- it was later noted he was a cousin), and she'd pissed him off too, one too many times. She lived alone because she wanted to, and paid the price.


From the Worcester Telegram-Gazette, a few years ago.....

GUILT HAUNTS NEIGHBORS OF DEAD WOMAN By Jeff Donn Associated Press Writer WORCESTER--Guilt gnaws at former neighbors of 73-year-old Adele Gaboury, who died in her kitchen and lay undiscovered in a heap of trash for four years. ... The stench and garbage at Ms. Gaboury's house prompted a complaint to health inspectors last month.  Health officials contacted police, who found the decomposed body Oct. 23. Checking bank records and other clues, authorities determined that Ms. Gaboury had died four years earlier, apparently of natural causes.  A phone lay off the hook beside her bones, as though her final thought was to call for help. By nearly all accounts, Ms. Gaboury was a difficult person to help in most situations. ... Neighbors inquired about Ms. Gaboury about four years ago, after they noticed that they hadn't seen her in a while. Police acknowledge that neighbors repeatedly called them to the working-class neighborhood of this central Massachusetts community of 160,000 to check Ms. Gaboury's property. The Dugan family kept mowing the lawn, and no missing person complaint was filed. Police said a brother, Joseph Gaboury of East Brookfield, told them he believed his sister had ended up a patient in a nursing home.  They conveyed that false report to worried neighbors.

From another source...

When Adele Gaboury's front lawn grew hip-high, her neighbors had a local boy mow it down. When her pipes froze and burst, they had the water turned off. When the mail spilled out the front door, they called the police. The only thing they didn't do was check to see if she was alive. She wasn't. On Monday, police climbed her crumbling brick stoop, broke in the side door of her little blue house, and found what they believe to be the seventy-three-year-old woman's skeletal remains sunk in a five-foot-high pile of trash wherethey had apparently lain, perhaps for as long as four years. “It's not really a friendly neighborhood,” said Eileen Dugan, whose house sits 20 feet from the dead woman's home. “I'm as much to blame as anyone. She was alone and needed someone to talk to, but I was working two jobs and was sick of her coming over at all hours. Eventually I stopped answering the door.”

Quoted: wasn't she an arfcommer?, i heard this somewhere

DUDE!!!!  WRONG!!!!  ( I hope )

It's things like this that motivate people to start losing weight.

Quoted: It's things like this that motivate people to start losing weight.

Or at least to get up off the couch.....

[Queen] fat bottom girls you make the rockin' world go round....[/Queen]

Nobody should die that way.

Quoted: Nobody should die that way.

Nobody should live that way

I'm still trying to see how this is a collective failure of society as some here seem to think. She hid from help. Those infrequent visiotrs and the guy who lived with her seemed to have dome nothing. And this bloated animal did nothing for herself either. Is it sad? Sure. Is anyone but the woman and the few around her who couldn't manage to lift a finger to help her to blame? No.


I see crap like this all the time at work. People perfectly content to live in utter squallor. I referred so many to socail services, given them the numbers, made the calls myself, but some are just content to live like animals.

This happened in the county I live in. In one of the trashiest areas of what is otherwise one of the top two wealthiest counties in the state. That neighborhood was marginal 30 years ago and has gone to Hell on a greased pole since then. The "boyfriend" was interviewed on TV and unless you're around people who speak like him, you wouldn't have understood a word he said. I had to interpret the interview for my wife. The guy had 4 teeth in his head, which made it even harder to understand him. After the news people repeatedly questioned him as to why he didn't call someone about his "girlfriends" condition he went into his little tearless crying act and feigned sorrow.

What the news stories didn't tell you was that the rescue workers and Health and Human Services people had to wear respirators just so they could tolerate the stench in the apartment.

Now in the city where I work in the next county to the north something this disgusting happens all the time and doesn't even warrant news coverage. But in Martin county where its not expected, it makes national news.

Quoted: Quoted: [Queen] fat bottom girls you make the rockin' world go round....[/Queen] I like big butts and I cannot lie! Don't know who sang it.

Sir Mix-a-lot..... back in the mid 1990's......

Believe it or not...alot of people live this way.  I would have never dreamed people actually live this way until I became an LEO.  I go into a squalid, filthy house at least once every week or so.    

One of my greatest hits:

A call of two feces-covered infants stuck on the upstairs balcony of an apartment.  Kids were 2 and 3 years old, both in diapers.  The diapers were so full of feces they swung under the kids like a pendulum.  The plastic around their hips was strained to the breaking point and thier genitals were exposed.  They were covered from head to toe in shit, as was the entire porch, plastic chair and large bowl of Cheerios the parents had so thoughfully put out for them like a pair of dogs.  Neighbors estimated the kids were out there for 24 hours.  Kids were on the porch crying when we arrived.

Inside: Tweek parents were on a crank binge and asleep when we got there.  Fridge was empty except for something green inside a KFC box.  Dishes were piled in sink and fused together with mold.  The carpet in the apartment was matted and hard as cement.  The floor was covered with trash including skeletal cats and rodents, fishhooks, engine parts, empty oil cans, jars of turpentine, animal and human feces and decomposed food.  The toilet was inop and full of feces.  The bathtub was full of urine (we think) and the place smelled of ammonia so bad we had to leave before we were done taking oictures.  The amount of bugs in the place was staggering.

Not one of my proudest moments, but I went outside after the place was evacuated and barfed.  Long story short, kids went to CPS, both parents went to jail, the ENTIRE building was closed by the Health Dept, and a Hazmat team had to red-bag the place over the next four days.  I promptly threw my boots and pants away.  BTW, dad worked at Taco Bell down the street.  

 

Quoted: Believe it or not...alot of people live this way.  I would have never dreamed people actually live this way until I became an LEO.  I go into a squalid, filthy house at least once every week or so.     One of my greatest hits: (snip)Not one of my proudest moments, but I went outside after the place was evacuated and barfed.  Long story short, kids went to CPS, both parents went to jail, the ENTIRE building was closed by the Health Dept, and a Hazmat team had to red-bag the place over the next four days.  I promptly threw my boots and pants away.  BTW, dad worked at Taco Bell down the street.

Let me be the first to say it:

"WING HUNT!"

Quoted: BTW, dad worked at Taco Bell down the street.

You just had to mention that didn't ya'? (JK). I am starting to second guess my ealier lunch choice. Thanks.

Quoted: Quoted: Nobody should die that way. Nobody should live that way

Precisely.

Quoted: Nobody should die that way.

did it to herself.

http://images.ibsys.com/2004/0811/3643906.jpg

Hope she's in that big Couch up in the sky. R.I.P.

Quoted: Quoted: ...including a DUI on his bicycle in 2002 WTF? Is that for real? "Driving" a Bicycle? Not to hijack this thread but some states dont differentiate vehicles. So anything that moves you besides your own two feet could be considered driving.

I know an amish boy who was arrested for DUI. He was driving his buggy

Quoted: wasn't she an arfcommer?, i heard this somewhere

Quick someone check to to see if Imbrogilo has posted anywere since the woman died.
I bet it was him.


I do know I am not going to sit on my couch tonight AT ALL.

Well, at least the couch manufacturer can claim to have the most sturdy and dependable couch ever...they probably already have a new slogan:

"Everlast furniture...so comfortable, you'll never want to get up"

Quoted: images.ibsys.com/2004/0811/3643906.jpg Hope she's in that big Couch up in the sky. R.I.P.

Quoted: Well, at least the couch manufacturer can claim to have the most sturdy and dependable couch ever...they probably already have a new slogan: "Everlast furniture...so comfortable, you'll never want to get up"

Very poor taste, that man.

I believe that the big problem was that she broke her leg twice, and was in pain.  The fact that she was grossly overweight to begin with compounded (no pun intended), and may have been the root casue of, the problem.

Sad story on so many levels.

The cousin works for FL Department of Famileis and Children.  Weren't these the folks that "lost" about a dozen kids a few years ago.  If we are going to fund these agencies then, damn it, we better get some work out of them!  Oops! Government job...my bad...never mind.

Question for the doctors.

Why can't they liposuction people like this?
I understand people die from liposuction, and especially when it is overdone.
But shouldn't a huge person be able to stand losing 10 lbs at a time, or some such number?
Are they too weak to recover and they get infected?
Wouldn't the benefits outweigh the risks?

This is far beyond laziness or gluttony.

When you start urinating and defecating on yourself, you've moved on into the metal illness region.

Obviously she had lost her mind.  Some people are just plain crazy.