Posted on 01/26/2009 3:35:33 PM PST by Mrs. P
A pathologist said a 93-year-old Bay City man froze to death inside his home - his body found days after city workers said they limited electricity flowing to the house.
Marvin E. Schur suffered "a slow, painful death" inside his home at 1600 S. Chilson St. on Bay City's southwest side, said Dr. Kanu Virani, who performed an autopsy on the body.
"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."
Funeral services for Schur, a retired pattern-maker who lived alone, are at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Gephart Funeral Home, 201 W. Midland St. Schur's wife, retired elementary-school teacher Marian I. (Meisel) Schur, died several years ago, and the couple had no children.
Virani, Oakland County's deputy chief medical examiner, performs autopsies for Bay County and numerous other Michigan counties. Of about 15,000 autopsies Virani has conducted, he said Marvin Schur's autopsy "is the first one I can remember doing on someone who froze to death indoors."
Virani said the temperature inside Schur's home was less than 32 degrees when neighbors George A. Pauwels Jr. and his wife, Shannon, found Schur's body Jan. 17.
George Pauwels Jr. said Schur owed almost $1,100 in electricity bills to the city of Bay City, though Pauwels said he noticed money clipped to those bills on Schur's kitchen table the day he found Schur's body.
Bay City Manager Robert V. Belleman said a worker with Bay City Electric Light & Power placed a "limiter" device outside Schur's home, between Schur's electricity meter and electrical service, on Jan. 13.
The device restricts the amount of electricity reaching the home and if a homeowner tries to draw more electricity than the limiter allows, "it blows the limiter, just like blowing a fuse, and then you go outside and reset it," Belleman said.
Belleman said he doesn't know if a city worker made one-on-one contact with Schur to explain the limiter's operation. Virani said he doesn't know if Schur suffered from dementia, which could have interfered with his ability to know how to reset a limiter.
Pauwels said Schur couldn't hear well, and said he believed Schur "had a little bit" of dementia.
Belleman said city workers keep the limiter on a residence for 10 days, at which point the city shuts off all electricity if the homeowner hasn't paid his utility bill or arranged to do so.
Jim Hernden, 41, a neighbor of Marvin Schur, said Bay City Electric Light & Power workers should insist on meeting face to face with a homeowner, or a homeowner's neighbors, before installing a limiter or shutting off power.
"We're a small enough town where someone like Marvin should get a little bit extra care," he said.
Bay City Police Department officers investigated Schur's death, but declined comment, referring all questions to Belleman.
Pauwels said he blames the city for Marvin Schur's death.
"His furnace was not running - the insides of his windows were full of ice the morning we found him," Pauwels said. "This (limiter) is supposed to regulate the amount of electricity he was using, but still allow enough power to run the furnace.Obviously, it didn't work."
Belleman said city officials will review Electric Light & Power policies in the wake of Schur's death. Belleman said he doesn'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."
I might have mentioned the duplicate post only so you could see the commentary on one of them that is just — sad. Another article also said the man had money clipped to the electric bill.
There are now 3 articles posted! I think this article that I posted says there was money clipped to the bill lying on his table.
This is so sad. In this state, utility companies can’t shut off a person’s power especially in winter. BUT - this was not a utility company, it is a municipality that operates their own power company, and they operate under different rules. They don’t pay taxes on the power they provide, they borrow at a lower rate if interest, and they can subsidize the rates so theirs are lower. They are not under the same requirements to NOT shut off a person’s power in winter.
If this man had been a Consumer’s Energy customer he might still be alive.
I can believe anything about a city which is run by democrats. I feel so bad for the poor old man.
He might of well been marginally functional. He might not of under stood the limit thing being put on his meter.
As it got cold, he might of thought it was his heating system failing. Anyways, the physical demand of the cold, well before he became physically incapacitated would/might of been enough to befuddle him so that he didn’t know what was going on. People that age, even if alert, are right on the edge.
No doubt the government power company was way over staffed with politically connected friends and family featherbedding the organization.
http://obits.mlive.com/BayCity/DeathNotices.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=123246236
“”Marvin Edward Schur “Mutts”
Bay City, Michigan
Mr. Schur passed away unexpectedly Sunday, January 15, 2009 at his residence. Age 93 years. He was born April 30, 1915 in Saginaw, Michigan and had resided in Bay City for many years. He retired as a pattern maker from Baker-Perkins Co. in Saginaw and served with the U.S. Army as a medic during WW II.
Marvin is survived by his nephew, Bentley (Genevieve) Bremer of Saginaw and his niece, Beth (James) Stricker of Dunedin, Florida. He was predeceased
the former Marian I. Meisel whom he married on June 21, 1947, one brother and sister-in-law, Jack (Pat) Schur; two sisters and two brothers-in-law: Bonnie (Arthur) Bremer and Alice (Gerald) Walworth.
A Memorial Service will take place Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 11:00 a.m. at the Gephart Funeral Home, Inc. Officiating will be Rev. Jonathan K. Boyer under the auspices of the Bay County Veterans Council with private inurnment in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Saginaw. The family will be present at the funeral home on Wednesday from 10:00 a.m. and until the time of services. “”
What a disgrace - and the man a war veteran too. I’m not seeing anything in these articles to prove that he was financially unable to pay his bills. At his age, he may have had trouble with the process itself. When my father-in-law developed dementia, the first skills he lost were those involved with numbers, money and time. He gave up on paying the bills long before he needed help with other activities of daily living. We’ll never really know, but the poor old man deserved better.
check the post a couple down from this - he worked for BP.
In cases like these it's the first responders who get the booty - job perk.....the town gets nada.
ping
Yes. He was a vet. WW2 medic.
I hope that electric companies all over the nation take a lesson from this and it’s never repeated.
Are you speaking from experience?
This was the city, not a power utility, that killed this man. Bay City runs it’s own electric operation, they are a municipality and operate under much looser rules than utilities have to follow. They don’t pay taxes on the power, they can charge lower rates because they buy power cheaper than the big utilities can. They also get loans at lower rates when they want to do improvements.
Bay City was on the news this morning, just heard on the radio that they are asking for a rate increase for electricity.
The power utility in this state, at least the one in this part of the state, can’t just turn off power. They also don’t use these limiting devices.
If this man had been a Consumers Energy customer he would still be alive. Bay City’s employees killed this man, but like the city manager is quoted in this article, he doesn’t think they did anything wrong.
WWII vet frozen to death leaves estate to hospital
CNN | 2/5/2009 | Wayne Drash
Posted on 02/05/2009 7:04:05 AM PST by Red in Blue PA
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2178907/posts
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