The Marion County Coroner’s Office has come under fire after it was revealed that an obese woman was dragged from her home and hauled away on a trailer in front of family members following her death.
Teresa Smith, 48, who weighed 750 pounds, died Tuesday in her apartment on Indianapolis’ northeast side.
Officials at the scene told 6News’ Jack Rinehart that the deputy coroner made the decision to call a towing service to remove the body from the home.
“We debated for quite a while about how we were going to get her out of there and so we finally decided, since we didn’t have a van that was large enough to carry her, it was decided between (the police) department and the coroner’s office to use (the truck),” said Detective Marcus Kennedy.
Smith’s boyfriend and the couple’s 13-year-old son, along with several neighbors, watched as Smith’s body, still on her mattress, was dragged across the courtyard of the apartment complex, strapped down on the wrecker and covered with a piece of carpet.
“I think they should have handled it differently, putting her on a flatbed like they did. That was like putting a cow up there,” said Smith’s boyfriend, David Johnson.
Here’s an alternative solution:
Just a real ‘yo mama so fat’ joke in the headlines
Bobbo – can I get you a tissue?
http://tinyurl.com/refm2
Napalm
Bring out your dead:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KrAs7iM7UNg
Mr Fusion for once I agree
she is dead one of 3 things have happened
If we religious people are correct she is really happy in her new place or she is having the worst time ever but either way that body is not occupied any more and is just a hunk of decomposing meat and fat
if you fusion types are correct she is still just a hunk of possible soylent green either way it is a corpse and she prob would not be dead if some one in that family would have quit feeding her about 10k calories a day
Why are we expecting the coroner or the police to move our dead anyway? No one from the family stepped up to contract someone else to move the body? I’m sorry, but in this society, if you want dignity, you have to pay for it. If you don’t want to be dragged out of your house and strapped to a tow hitch, don’t get fat. You may say that you might have a hormone problem, bla bla bla. If you don’t have money to buy food, you’ll eat less. If you are addicted to food, then you’ll die just as any other meth head. Take some personal responsibility here people. You want dignity? It starts with yourself.
#27 – I agree with you, personal responsibility is where it’s at. I have no sympathy for this woman or her boyfriend or son, cause they allowed this to happen. How big is either of them, I wonder? A dead body is a dead body and no respect is warranted. Cremation is the proper way to go, imho.
Well, it IS very sad. But what is the coroner supposed to do? None of the options are particularly good, or for that matter much better than what they did. Perhaps waiting until dark, but it all depends on what time she died and the ambient temperature. It does not take long for things to get real nasty in hot weather.
I AM always amazed at these tremendously obese people who, the story usually goes, can’t get out of bed. Someone must be bringing them food, by the bucket load, not to mention the inevitable waste removal. If I were a statist type, I’d say that the family should be brought up on charges of abuse.
# 19 BigBoyBC said, “…gawkers and jackasses like you making jokes.
None of you can even imagine the nightmare that woman’s life had become nor her family’s.”
Take a break BigBoy. Sorry about your uncle but, in my experience (and I have had several of these huge patients – the biggest was nearly as heavy as this woman) the families are often relieved to have the burden lifted from them. I was seeing a teenaged girl for another problem once and she told me since her aunt had passed away, “the house smells a lot better.”
Maybe this woman’s “boyfriend” helped wipe her ass and empty the bedpan and cook the many meals a day and give her sponge baths. Probably not. Bet the 13 year old did most of it. In any case, it’s over now and the family can begin the process of healing.
I’m with Fusion. When I go, I want to be tossed in a hole and allowed to feed a tree or two. And if they get me to the cemetery in a bucket loader or a beat up pick up truck, who cares? I know I won’t.
My mom died at home a few months ago. The undertaker offered to my brother and me to transfer her from bed to stretcher and then put her in the back of the undertaker’s SUV. Mom was just a little bitty thing but believe me there’s nothing tremendously dignified about sliding someone into the back of an SUV. Still, it beats a flatbed, I guess. My point – and I do have on (though it doesn’t show if I part my hair on the side)- is that it’s rough on the family no matter how they take them out.
No Funeral Home has the ability to deal with this, the coroner had to do it. Having been on first calls, we tried to always get the family out the way. You often have to stand the deceased up to get down staircases and tight places. Often air trapped in the lungs and stomach can produce a moaning sound. This of course can make for an awkward situation. The family could have been removed from the site. As a side note, few crematoriums could handle this body. After the dot com failure I went to work at a funeral hone than return to teaching high school. At least you had a lot of quiet time. I had a break down after two years, it can be a hard business.
A cow is a cow is a cow.
Wake up and smell the roses of reality.
If they where humiliated all the better, they where obviusly part of the problem, letting some one get that obese shuld be a crime.
And if you are discraced by your own action or inaction all the better.
An viable alternative shuld be forsing the family take care of the whole problem.
From digging a huge ass grave or woodpile to burn the lardass, to actually carrying the body to whatever is needed.
She was 600+ pounds past dignity.
A six man stretcher would have each carrying 125 pounds. Of course a normal stretchers hand holds would be inaccessible with that huge a body. Even a normal skid-steer loader would not handle her weight very well.
If you are going to eat to be that large or feed someone till they get that large forget dignity, install double width doors and have a reinforced floor that can handle the combined weight of blubber and blubber removal implements.
That woman ran out of “dignity” a long time ago.
Locally in Ca we just had the same thing happen today!
http://www.kcra.com/news/19525564/detail.html
#8-Noel
If her family had any dignity them-selves they would have put her on a diet… and before anyone says it, yes they could have, it’s not like she could get up and get her own food.
Unfortunately, Indiana (where I was born and used to live) is so full of overeating Bubbas and Bubbettes that this incident will probably occur again, and the coroner or funeral director will have to deal with the situation way too many times. Sad.
You people are mean. I could not get up to 750 pounds (or 250 for that matter) no matter how much I ate. Believe me, I’ve tried, actually I’m scarfing a 4th meal from Taco Bell right now, but I digress. Something medical must be going on, but either way everyone deserves to be treated with dignity whether they think so or not.
How you treat someone is a reflection on YOU, not on the other person.
Everybody should be treated with respect but if you weigh that much six guys aren’t going to pick you up and carry you to a nice van with out risking their backs as for getting through the doors…The less said the better.
They did what they had to do.