A 93-year-old man froze to death inside his home just days after the municipal power company restricted his use of electricity because of unpaid bills, officials said. Marvin E. Schur died “a slow, painful death,” said Kanu Virani, Oakland County’s deputy chief medical examiner, who performed the autopsy.
Neighbors discovered Schur’s body on Jan. 17. They said the indoor temperature was below 32 degrees at the time, The Bay City Times reported Monday. “Hypothermia shuts the whole system down, slowly,” Virani said. “It’s not easy to die from hypothermia without first realizing your fingers and toes feel like they’re burning.”
Schur owed Bay City Electric Light & Power more than $1,000 in unpaid electric bills, Bay City Manager Robert Belleman told The Associated Press on Monday.
A city utility worker had installed a “limiter” device to restrict the use of electricity at Schur’s home on Jan. 13, Belleman said. The device limits power reaching a home and blows out like a fuse if consumption rises past a set level. Power is not restored until the device is reset.
The limiter was tripped sometime between the time of installation and the discovery of Schur’s body, Belleman said. He didn’t know if anyone had made personal contact with Schur to explain how the device works.
Found by John Ligums.
#13
Here in Honduras the 911 is an emergency number and can be dialed regardless.
I can’t believe how many heartless people on this blog. The guy was 93 years old!
why couldn’t the city put a lien against his house? Whenever he dies or sells it, the city gets it’s money back.
just think how many senior’s heating bills could be paid for by buying one less cruise missile.
I agree. #14 is rather out there. Your ancestors im sure were capable of doing those things… When you reach 93 and are alone, it’s quite a different story. It wouldnt have taken much for someone to check on an elderly man who was trying to stay as independent (as we all would like) in his last years. A simple phone call would have let you know there was something wrong. I don’t care if this man was a saint or a serial killer.. people shouldnt have to die like that. & def not alone.
“Sad and tragic as this is, the man had options that he chose not to use. Would it be any sadder if his furnace had broken down in the night and he froze because he didn’t get the hell out of there to someplace warm?”
He was 93. Think “dementia”. I understand all the well-spoken arguments above but I still think the utility should be virorously sodomozed (symbolically) in court for letting an old guy freeze to death.
#20, Ron,
The electric company can’t make judgement calls on each customer.
Like I said earlier, in Indiana local utilities need permission to cut some one off in winter. For those not in the Mid-West, that was a very cold spell around here. I imagine it was even colder in Michigan on the Lake.
Anyone, especially a City Manager, had better use some brains if he cuts off someone’s power in the winter with below 0 F temperatures outside. Coulda, whoulda, shoulda, doesn’t cut it. KNOWING does.
There was nothing in the article that the neighbors knew his power was cut.
#7 Paddy
Come to Melbourne, Australia if you want some global warming. Yesterday was 38 deg Celsius, today is 40, tomorrow 43 and then 40 and 40 forecast. Probably an unprecedented heat wave. Out water storages are approaching 20% and it hasn’t really rained much for 2 months. We are also in the grip of a 10 year drought.
30 years ago Melbourne was regularly ridiculed for being the ‘rainy’ city.
Perhaps its time you gave your myopic ‘gee its cold today, what happened to global warming’ bullshit a rest.
My hometown…sad as it is, the city made many attempts to get a hold of the gentleman and only put a “coupling” on the power to reduce the energy to the home for only non-essentials (this is what they do to non-payers) So he had power, how he chose to use it is in question.
#16,
If someone is too inept to take care of themselves then WE, AS A SOCIETY, TAKE CARE OF THEM!!!
Your logic sounds like it is straight out of Nazi Germany.
Actually, the society taking care of everyone is part of Nazism, not the other way around.
From “The 25 Points of Hitler’s Nazi Party”
7. We demand that the State shall above all undertake to ensure that every citizen shall have the possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood.
15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.
People tend to forget that Hitler’s Germany wanted the people to depend on the State. State is Mother, State is Father.
That being said, Fusion is right: Around here the utilities need permission to cut off someone’s power or gas during the winter. If they need help with their bills, the utility is to contact a Social Service agency to help out.
I believe most communities have a regulation/law very similar. At least everywhere I’ve lived. We’re paying the taxes so we might as well use the service.
I’m sorry but if you are 93 somebody needs to be checking on you on a regular bases. Your mind may not be what it once was.
I don’t know what political party the people of that community belong to and unless Mr. Fusion does he needs to stick a blue whale in it.
The most likely outcome of what these people did was what they got and that is negligent homicide. They didn’t mean to kill him. They just weren’t paying any attention to the most likely results of their choices.
I’m not sure that the Feds can prevent events like this better than local governments can. I do know everything they touch costs more most likely because somebody is getting huge pay checks.
It is amazing we work all of our lives just to be forced into house. The reason, well, do someone else can exploit all your material objects especially the green in color. He probably lived on a SS check that barely covered his rent combined with food. This is mainly due to greed. The rich get rich and nothing is going to change.Is it too bad the elderly and less forunate peoples have to suffer so some rich bastard can buy a high price tag car and house to prove they are indeed rich. This society is not acceptable to any moral standards. Forgive me for ranting and losing track of my point. I know a few a homeless people, Handicapped people, and sickly who lost their voice because of their standing in this “civilized society.” We just let a 93 guy freeze and trying to justify it. How can anyone think Americans are scum. It’s a mistery.
This is a man that served his country during world war II and to let something like this happen to a senior citizen is unforgivable. The city should be held responsible for his death. Take the city adminstrator out and just let him get a little frost bit on his fingers and toes. Not enough to really kill him but just enough to make him wish he would die.
# 31 Michael said, “Take the city adminstrator out and just let him get a little frost bit on his fingers and toes. Not enough to really kill him but just enough to make him wish he would die.”
Sorry, that’s not in the Army field manual…
#32 You are right my mistake
This is just tragic. This man served his country during World War II and this is the payment he gets. I say his power should have been free once he reached the age of 90.
And some of the comments I have read from people defending the power company while at the same time blaming the elderly war vet for not seeking out help does not shock me. People are growing more and more cold towards each other these days. God forbid that any of you should reach such a ripe old age and find yourselves all alone with those you have loved all dead and gone, and maybe you can’t drive or get around like you use to because your eyesight and motor skills aren’t what they used to be and even worse you have become distrustful of strangers because you have been taken advantage of by a con-artist or two. And maybe someone from the local church stops in once a week to check on you and make sure your ok and have food (But little good will that do if you should happen to fall down the stairs and break your hip 5 minutes after they have left). No God forbid that any of this should happen to you.
I mean when they are both weighed in the balance which is more important the power company’s 1,000 plus dollars or a man’s life (and for that matter should anyone’s heat be turned off in the middle of winter in michigan in this day and age during these hard economic times, I mean these are not the days of lewis and clark
So is the power company to blame? yes, but so are the rest of us. I mean surely his immediate neighbors knew he was 93 and that he lived alone, surely someone noticed that once the sun went down there was no type of lighting coming from Mr. Schur’s home indicating that the power was out. Did they offer assistance? Did they offer him a few extra blankets and hope that that would be enough for him to make it through the freezing cold night, or even better did anyone open up there home and insist that he stay with them until his power was back on. Yes ultimately we Mr. Schur’s neighbors failed him.
So today when your driving from work to your nice cozy warm home and you see that nice elderly person in your neighborhood (You know the one, they’re usually standing in the driveway or on the porch or looking through their front window and waving at every person that walks or drives by their home. Yeah that one) stop by and introduce yourself let him or her know who you are and that they can call on you if they need too, and if there really up in the years you could have them do something like leave a certain light on in a specific window that lets you know that they are fine and have turned in for the evening, and in the day time they can hang something on their front porch to indicate that they are up and about. That way you can avoid that scene where your coming home only to see the police and ambulance outside Mr. or Mrs’s so and so’s house and hearing from another neighbor that they died on the bathroom floor 4 days ago because they slipped and fell while exiting their bath tub. Therefore I say go ahead and be THE GOOD NEIGHBOR.
In closing all I can say is that I hope Mr. Schur died in Christ, if he has then he has lost nothing and gained everything. I would also like to thank him for serving his country during the most terrible war it has ever faced. He survived through this country’s first great depression only to be sadly and tragically lost during the onset of the second one. However I am truly sorry Mr. Schur that your country, your city, and your neighbors were not there for you in your time of need.
This is totally inhumane and unacceptable. The utility workers should not be able to do this during certain winter months. Perhaps the man had been alone and too sick to make a call or payment. At 93 Payin all your bills on time is not always a priority, but rather being scared and alone was during the bad weather was. What if it was your father, neighbour, bother, friend how would that make you feel. No one is asking the world to stop as a result, but this is just a reminder to have empathy for other people and their situations.
Well let us see where this has gone. We should do violence to the City Manager and City Council for letting this old man die after he didn’t pay his bill.
Well let us get real here the guy left $600,000 to a local hospital, why didn’t he pay his bill?