BAY CITY, Mich. (AP) — 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." ...
Read The Associated Press Story (here).
Also, from Wichita Falls [Texas] Times editorial:
Our Opinion: Heartless Power company shows no remorse at death of customerRead the entire editorial (here).
No one gave Marvin E. Schur a second thought.
And someone should lose sleep — if not some freedom — over his death.
...The company must file testimony in the case by Feb. 22, reported the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth, including what steps the company took to enroll senior citizens like Schur for shut-off protection.
Bay City Manager Robert Belleman told the Associated Press that the company’s policies would be reviewed but he didn’t think the case was handled incorrectly.
A man died, and the city manager doesn’t think the city did anything wrong?
In his infinite wisdom, the city manager did have one sound piece of advice:
“I’ve said this before and some of my colleagues have said this: Neighbors need to keep an eye on neighbors,” Belleman told the AP.
Customers are neighbors, too.
Having endured this form of torture several times, Marie is all too familiar with this kind of scenario -- with Southwest Baptist University and Missouri Baptist Convention officials applauding as Empire District Electrical Company (and their lawyers, who happened to be deacons/spiritual leaders at First Baptist Church of Bolivar and within the Southern Baptist Convention Boards) as well as the attorneys for the City of Bolivar, the County of Polk, Missouri ... and (of course) Southwest Baptist University permitted Marie's utilities to be disconnected on over a dozen occasions, the longest for 64 days.
Marie herself does not face electrical disconnection this winter -- which, however, is not due to any assistance from any federal, state, local or Christian organization, because she has still not received any assistance since this statement in 1996 (see here).
Nonetheless, we could not allow this incident to pass without some comment.
