93 year old freezes to death indoors

[hukarez]

Wow...

93-year-old man freezes to death indoors - Life- msnbc.com

BAY CITY, Mich. - 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."

'Limiter' device installed

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, said Belleman. 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.
The body was discovered by neighbor George Pauwels Jr.
"His furnace was not running, the insides of his windows were full of ice the morning we found him," Pauwels told the Bay City News.

Power shut off if bills unpaid

Belleman said city workers keep the limiter on houses for 10 days, then shut off power entirely if the homeowner hasn't paid utility bills or arranged to do so.
He said Bay City Electric Light & Power's policies will be reviewed, but he didn't believe the city did anything wrong.
"I've said this before and some of my colleagues have said this: Neighbors need to keep an eye on neighbors," Belleman said. "When they think there's something wrong, they should contact the appropriate agency or city department."
Schur had no children and his wife had died several years ago.
Bay City is on Saginaw Bay, just north of the city of Saginaw in central Michigan.

[Lathum]

It's tragic, but what can the power company do?

They can't just let people go on not paying bills, I would be curious to know if the power company tried to contact him regarding his past due payments and he just ignored them. I'm pretty sure if he spoke with them some arrangment could have been made.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Lathum

It's tragic, but what can the power company do?

They can't just let people go on not paying bills, I would be curious to know if the power company tried to contact him regarding his past due payments and he just ignored them. I'm pretty sure if he spoke with them some arrangment could have been made.

I think that's the key- you don't kill someone as an object lesson to keep others from not paying their bills and I'm sure that's how this is going to be played out. However, utilities will work with you if you contact them.

No one should have to die because of a lack of money. And I don't think he would have if he had just worked with them. But you have to take that first step and talk to them.

SI

[JPhillips]

In Saginaw Bay the power should never be cut during the winter months. Yes, the man and/or his family should have taken action, but the town policy practically guarantees that something like this will happen.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

In Saginaw Bay the power should never be cut during the winter months. Yes, the man and/or his family should have taken action, but the town policy practically guarantees that something like this will happen.

But again, what else can the power company do?

I am in NO WAY saying this man should have been made an example of, but over $1000 worth of bills is quiet a few months worth, enough IMO for the power company to take necessary action.

I know in NJ they have programs that help the elderly and people who are low income pay their utility bills in the winter.

As tragic an this is it was certainly preventable, I am just not sure it is the power companys responsibility to prevent it.

either way, it's really sad.

[Greyroofoo]

The responsibility is ultimately with the 93 year old.

[RedKingGold]

I hope he believed in God.

[Alan T]

I know in Massachusetts, National Grid has a policy that they will not cut the power of anyone that fits the following:

- All members of household are over 65
- Someone in the household is seriously ill
- Financial Hardship
- Eligible for fuel assistance
- Have an infant under 12 months old and financial hardship

But they state very clearly that you must contact their credit department to notify them of this. I would assume most power companies in northern states have similar policies, so most likely this 93 year old simply never contacted them.

It is a tough to read this story and not immediately want to place blame on the power company for something like this. No matter what they do here they probably come off as the bad guy perception wise regardless. They probably did everything "correctly" but still I feel bad for the 93year old dying because of this.

[flere-imsaho]

A person's life is not worth a $1,000 electric bill.

Originally Posted by Lathum

It's tragic, but what can the power company do?

It reads to me like the power company is actually a city utility. I have a hard time believing the city couldn't employ other options to a) recoup this money and b) discourage other residents from not paying their electric bills. For one, they could put a lien against properties that do this.

The policy, I have to say, was pretty much a disaster waiting to happen, and this is the kind of situation (old guy alone, no family) where you get the worst-case scenario.

[flere-imsaho]

Illinois has a law that states as follows, fyi:

Gas and electric service to residential heating customers cannot be shut off if the National Weather Service predicts 32° temperatures or less for the next 24 hours, or if customers provide the utility with a valid illness certificate.

Service can be disconnected if the customer bill was not paid, the deposit or increased deposit amount was not paid by the due date, the customer tampered with company equipment, the deferred payment agreement was not kept, access to company equipment was denied, or hazardous health and safety conditions exist.

Before shutting off service, the utility must mail customers a final notice 8 days before shut-off or deliver the notice 5 days prior to disconnection. Service cannot be shut off after 2 p.m. unless the utility is prepared to reconnect service the same day at the regular reconnection charge. Before shutting off service to residential heating customers, the utility must once during the winter months: notify the customer by telephone, in person, or first class mail, that service may be shut off; offer a deferred payment agreement for past due bills and a level payment plan for future bills; provide information on government or private agency assistance; and not shut off service for at least 6 business days after notifying the customer of possible disconnection.

To have their service reconnected, customers must pay all past due bills or enter a deferred payment agreement, if the utility agrees. In addition, customers must pay a deposit, if required, and pay a reconnection fee, if required.

Households can be reconnected for less than full payment during the winter months only if gas or electric service provides the main source of heating; service was shut off for nonpayment between December 1 of the previous heating season and April 1 of the current heating season; the customer applied for service reconnection between November 1 and April 1; the customer was not reconnected using this winter policy last year; the customer hasn't benefited from the tampering of meters or other company equipment; and the customer has paid at least 1/3 of the amount billed since the previous December 1.

[JPhillips]

Look at it this way, if the same man owed me 1000$ and I cut his electricity and that led to his death would I be in the right?

[Logan]

Tampering with anyone's utility service would be a crime, horrible example.

[lungs]

I'm betting the old man was senile, and who knows, even had enough money to pay the bills?

[-apoc-]

WWII Veteran Freezes To Death In Own Home - News Story - WNEM Saginaw

A neighbor who lives across the street from Schur is angered that the city didn’t personally notify the elderly man about his utility situation.
Schur’s neighbor, Herndon, said Schur had a utility bill on his kitchen table with a large amount of money clipped to it, with the intention of paying that bill.
Right now the city said the situation is still under investigation. Marvin Schur was a World War II veteran.

This just makes it more outrageous.

[Logan]

Legitimate question: how would the utility company know this guy was that old, and not a 35 year old guy who wasn't paying his bills (outside of maybe him having a 50+ year account history)?

[Bad-example]

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.

These limiters should never be installed without proper notification and explanation of how it works. That seems the key point.

[miked]

Originally Posted by Logan

Legitimate question: how would the utility company know this guy was that old, and not a 35 year old guy who wasn't paying his bills (outside of maybe him having a 50+ year account history)?

Whenever I sign up for utilities, they always want my B-day, social, etc, for credit purposes. Clearly they had this all this information somewhere in their databases but like most workers these days, just lacked the effort to find it.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by miked

Whenever I sign up for utilities, they always want my B-day, social, etc, for credit purposes. Clearly they had this all this information somewhere in their databases but like most workers these days, just lacked the effort to find it.

Just because that information is out there, doesn't mean it's easily available. It's not as if there's a worker out there combing the credit banks for old people who might die if you turn off their power.

(And I'd hazard a guess that if there were companies doing this, people would complain about how wasteful this is and how high their bills are- because people need to keep consequences in mind)

SI

[flere-imsaho]

The point isn't that this one guy was 93, it's that the policy neglected to account for the fact that they're going to have some old customers (with all that this implies about mental state) who live alone on fixed incomes and do not have family to support them.

Read the Illinois law again for reference. In this kind of instance in Illinois, the power company is obliged to not only make basically a direct notification to the customer, but to also notify wellness-support organizations, who will then do a "well-check" of the customer, with the idea that issues like this will then be spotted and dealt with.

Which all seems like common sense, to be honest.

[Lathum]

I agree there should definantly have been a wellness check by the police.

If he was gonna pay his bill thats pretty messed up, but I find it hard to believe the power company didnt make numerous attempts to contact him.

I know in my younger days when I was broke and missed a bill my phone would be ringing off the hook.

[miked]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Just because that information is out there, doesn't mean it's easily available. It's not as if there's a worker out there combing the credit banks for old people who might die if you turn off their power.

(And I'd hazard a guess that if there were companies doing this, people would complain about how wasteful this is and how high their bills are- because people need to keep consequences in mind)

SI

Of course it's easily available. When I call them to discuss something, they make me verify my info (DOB, SSN, etc). I'm assuming when they pulled the files to see who was overdue, they had all this info readily available. But if it's like most companies, it was just a program that finds overdue bills by X amount and creates a ticket to shut off service or something to the sort. So no human at "home base" probably looked at the file and said, crap, this guy is 93, maybe he's dead...or something...let's take the extra 5 minutes out of our lives and do our job a little better

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by miked

Of course it's easily available. When I call them to discuss something, they make me verify my info (DOB, SSN, etc). I'm assuming when they pulled the files to see who was overdue, they had all this info readily available. But if it's like most companies, it was just a program that finds overdue bills by X amount and creates a ticket to shut off service or something to the sort. So no human at "home base" probably looked at the file and said, crap, this guy is 93, maybe he's dead...or something...let's take the extra 5 minutes out of our lives and do our job a little better

I'm not saying we shouldn't strive to be better- I do believe this is true. But this again seems like 20/20 hindsight. How were they to know? Who was to know? Was it the overworked guy in collections who has to call a couple hundred every day and has a quota on how many have to pay or he loses his job? Or his manager who has way too many people to manage because of budget constraints- who doesn't have enough time in the day to do his basic tasks, much less spend the "extra 5 minutes"?

Or how about the guy who programs the computer to check if power should be shut off? You know- the guy who is working 80 hours a week to keep his job in the US, who is doing the workload of 3 reasonable people. Or hell, maybe the guy's in India already. Or Brazil. Or any number of places this could have been outsourced to. Or, more likely, this process is just completely automated and there's no one who actually checks. We're not in the days of people manually doing all of this work.

It's not "should we take the extra 5 minutes to do a better job". If you had told any one of these people "hey, if you don't check on this guy, he's going to die", any number of them would have done it. You'd have to be a cold, heartless bastard not to want to. But that was not the situation.

In the end, there will probably be a change for the better, like the Illinois bill flere posted above. But, please, let's not pretend everyone was out to kill the guy and someone needs to pay.

SI

[miked]

Heh, that was never my intention. The point of my post was sort of what you said, people CAN die from this, so even though you are just sitting by your computer running queries, maybe there should be something else done. I blame management!

[wade moore]

Put me in the camp that doesn't think this is the power companies fault. I find the idea that a company (even if city owned) should be babysitting people to be silly.

We are ultimately responsible for ourselves - and if this man wasn't competent enough to understand that his power bill should be paid, he shouldn't have been living by himself. The power company should not be expected to pay for the irresponsibility of others.

[Commo_Soldier]

Originally Posted by miked

Heh, that was never my intention. The point of my post was sort of what you said, people CAN die from this, so even though you are just sitting by your computer running queries, maybe there should be something else done. I blame management!

+1

There should always be a more extreme effort to contact people in the winter when cutting or limiting power. Who is to say he has a functioning phone? What should have happened is before they put the limiter on, they should have tried knocking on the door at least 3 times in two or three weeks, stapling a notice every time. If the notices are gone, and no contact then place the limiter on, if they are still there after two weeks involve the police. I hope they spoke to him at least about the limiter, as it is unacceptable otherwise.

[mckerney]

I'm a bit surprised being here in Minnesota it's illegal for the power companies to shut off someone's power in the winter and thought it was something that was common throughout northern states.

[DaddyTorgo]

heh. god bless america. where we let old people freeze to death in their homes because they don't have enough green paper.

fucking ridiculous. criminal negligence on behalf of the power company for not ensuring the guy had any idea what to do maybe?

[Axxon]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

heh. god bless america. where we let old people freeze to death in their homes because they don't have enough green paper.

In this case, it appears he did have enough green paper though.

Not to come down on either side but I'm shocked this story is getting such discussion. It's not uncommon. I read about stories like this every winter it seems. I remember one time where it was a woman on a respirator who died.

Googling this found another woman on respirator

Family of respirator victim to sue over power cut | Top News

Anyway, there always seems to be some sort of protection against this happening when these things happen. I don't recall any utility just being so callous or being allowed to have a no exceptions policy it's just that some policies are easier to fall between the cracks of.

I've always considered it tragic and something to work on and improve but I'm not seeing any real malice or reason to be angry.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Axxon

In this case, it appears he did have enough green paper though.

Not to come down on either side but I'm shocked this story is getting such discussion. It's not uncommon. I read about stories like this every winter it seems. I remember one time where it was a woman on a respirator who died.

Googling this found another woman on respirator

Family of respirator victim to sue over power cut | Top News

Anyway, there always seems to be some sort of protection against this happening when these things happen. I don't recall any utility just being so callous or being allowed to have a no exceptions policy it's just that some policies are easier to fall between the cracks of.

I've always considered it tragic and something to work on and improve but I'm not seeing any real malice or reason to be angry.

eh i'm just an angry person