Michigan man, 93, freezes to death after city cuts off electricity

Michigan man, 93, freezes to death after city cuts off electricity


Bay City home where Marvin E. Schur froze to death

On January 17, the frozen body of 93-year-old Marvin E. Schur was found by neighbors at his home in Bay City, Michigan, several days after the municipal power company had restricted his access to electricity due to outstanding bills. The death has provoked outrage among residents in this working class city of 36,000, located where the Saginaw River flows into Lake Huron, about 100 miles north of Detroit.

On January 13, the city ordered the installation of a device known as a “limiter” that restricts the amount of electricity a household can use. Between the time the limiter was placed and January 17, a bitter Arctic cold front settled over Michigan, with overnight temperatures in the Bay City area reaching minus 10 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit). It is not clear when Schur died, but an obituary from the local newspaper placed the death on January 15.

Robert Belleman, Bay City’s city manager, said that Schur had accrued over $1,000 in unpaid electricity bills over the preceding months. No effort was made to visit Schur prior to the suspension.

Neighbors became alarmed when they noticed that Schur’s windows had become covered with ice. When neighbors found Schur’s body, temperatures in his house were below freezing, and water in his sink was frozen. The oven door was propped open, which suggests that Schur made a futile attempt to heat his home using the appliance.

Kanu Virani, a medical examiner who performed the autopsy, said that Schur died of hypothermia, which she described as a “slow, painful death.” “He was wearing a double layer of clothes, trying to stay warm,” Virani said.


The "limiter" placed on Shur's electric meter

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/bayc-j28.shtml

From your article:

"For his part, City Manager Robert Belleman has provoked particular outrage among residents by suggesting that Schur’s neighbors bear responsibility for failing to look after the elderly man.

Rick LuszekRick Luszek, retired utility worker

Rick Luszek, a retired utility worker who lives in the neighborhood said, “This is absurd. Shutting somebody’s electricity off in the dead of winter is criminal. These politicians sit at their desks pushing pencils and say we’re going to cut off electricity today. How can the city manager claim that the neighbors had a civic responsibility to look after this man? What about the city’s civic responsibility to look after him? I say damn Belleman for blaming the neighbors for this man’s death.”

Local residents are right to be outraged by the political leadership of their city and state, which is dominated from the local level up by the Democratic Party. Politicians of both parties have overseen the ruination of Michigan. In moments like the freezing death of Schur, they can scarcely conceal their contempt for the working class people they nominally represent. "

Killing additional innocents. Yup, that will show them.

:cry:

I'm disgusted with this. Money is more important than people?!

will never be cold throughout eternity.

probably living on a fixed income, rising cost of everything. 93 yrs old, probably outlived most of those he could turn to for help. What a horrible way to die. Alone and cold. This is what we do to our elderly? To our fellow citizens, Money is more important.

What have we become?

I don't know if the answer is to provide free electricity to everyone. I think the government's fault was not putting him into a conservatorship, since he could not take care of himself or pay for his basic utilities. I am not sure I want my tax dollars to go to someone else's utilities. Also, where was the man's family and neighbors? They are at fault along with the government.

The thought that my tax dollars might prevent a man from dying bugs me too.

Or, just wait until people die, then bitch after the fact? I threw out an idea, this man could not take care of himself, so the government could have done by using the Public Guardian. Do you have a better idea? Do you know of a different government program? Or, are you content to wait for people to die than complain after the fact?

And you suggest that I am the one being heatless?

You said "I am not sure I want my tax dollars to go to someone else's utilities."

I'm just saying, is that really such a horrible thing. Our tax dollars being spent for the good of the community. For crying out loud, a man died needlessly and that's the best you can come up with.

The Public Guardian should have been contacted either by the man's neighbors or by the man himself. This is a tragedy because the death could have easily been avoided. I also don't want my taxes to pay for free energy. I was against the so-called gas tax holiday promoted by McCain and Hillary Clinton. I still think that offering tax subsidized gas or energy could promote waste and climate change. Tax subsidized energy is bad policy.

With respect to the man's death, there are numerous ways to prevent the death rather than promoting free energy. Its similar to saying that in order to prevent car accidents at an intersection is to eliminate cars. No, you could install a stop sign or signal lights. That's my point. Everyone is jumping to the conclusion that the only solution is free electricity.

Seems there's billions of dollars being wasted killing people who just won't freeze to death of their own accord in other countries.

I have no problem giving tax money so a 93 year old man doesn't freeze to death. Personally I can think of few better places for billions of tax dollars to go than social services.

But I'm just a bleeding heart, I guess.

There are service to assist the elderly. Suggesting that the only or the best solution is to use tax dollars to provide free energy does a disservice to those in need. There are:

1. Public Guardian.
2. Meals On Wheels.
3. Public Shelters.
4. Social Services.
5. Church, Family and Neighbors.

Now, it is dangerous to suggest that such individuals like this individual can only be served by providing free electricity. Yes, we can act bitter, and make emotionally laden arguments about how its not fair that Multi-billion company X is getting a bailout so why shouldn't we all get a bailout. However, such arguments sound immature and don't solve squat. Or, you could look through solutions 1 through 5, and see why they did not work in this case, and how they can be improved. Its a false choice to suggest that the only solution is free electricity, and suggesting that this is the only alternative imperils millions of elderly who may be sitting in the cold deciding what to do.

Should they just sit there and die as they wait for the electricity fairy? Is this what you are suggesting with your "bleeding heart"? Or, take advantage of those resources which are available, and improve them if they are not working effectively.

And yes, with YOUR tax dollars. Or better yet, the utility company could write it off.

This should be outright illegal. Especially during extreme heat and cold weather.

That poor man! How alone he must've felt as he was dying that way, for no reason. :cry:

good chance his family had gone before him.

Neighbors may have a moral responsibility to watch out for each other, although where I live I'm a "transplant" so my neighbors hate me and steal from me at every chance.

And right now, it's all most families can do to look after themselves. How were they to know his electricity had been cut off 2 days earlier? The electric company didn't even pay a visit to him -- do you think they notified his neighbors?

Today you may resent your tax dollars going to pay for this man's electricity until his house could be sold and he could be put into some sort of nursing home or assisted living situation.

Just remember, though, that some day, if you are lucky, you may live to be 93 and find yourself alone in a very strange world that's becoming stranger every day.

What I think is saddest is he apparently didn't even have anybody he felt he could ask for help...

This guy's wife had died and he had no children.

I know! God, wouldn't it just be icky if poor kids and elderly people were saved from the hypothermia they so richly deserve by our tax dollars? How is that the least bit fair? Why should *I* have to contribute to someone else staying alive?!

:eyes:

private jet, much better use of our tax dollars.

I understand that you are upset with the idea of charging people for the energy they consume. However, if we adopt your apparent plan for free energy, wouldn't this further speed up clamate change? Afterall, didn't the availability of cheap gas help the popularity of SUVs?

I do find it odd that on the one hand some folks here want to impose a gas tax, yet others want to provide free energy. You can't have it both ways.

i WANT my tax dollars to pay for utilities for the most vulnerable among us.

...existing programs such as:

1. Public Guardian if the person was frail and elderly.
2. Public shelters.
3. Church, family or neighbors to check up with him.
4. Meals on wheels programs that are offered by many municipalities for the elderly.

This is my point. I see the OP, then a bunch of posts bemoaning the fact that this man was charged for his eletricity. My point is the solution is not free electricity. The problem is that the man was elderly and vulnerable, and that is the problem that needs to be addressed.

Sorry if it sounds a bit abrasive, but I find it maddening that this man died, but I am not just going to bitch after the fact. There are solutions, and people should not be dissuaded from appealing to those who are in a position to help, rather than simply complaining that energy does not come free of charge.

(typo)

Which means that we are already paying for these services.

That's your straw man. So, what's your solution or is this kind of situation acceptable, regrettable, but acceptable? People freezing to death in the cold and dark because they made the mistake of not making a butt load of money.

There are programs to help individuals like the man who died. Yet, the expressions of outrage over the fact that his eletricity was shut off because he did not pay his bills. My response is that, of course, they shut off his electricity because he did not pay his bills. I see no problem with that. Now, if you have no problem with this, then we do not disagree.

The problem I see is with the failure of government, friend and family to meet this man's needs, since he was unable to care for himself.

other men's lives. His final years should have been filled with honor and dignity, but he let die for a thousand dollars.

Shameful.

I could go for that.

We treat people like paper plates. Can't pay what's demanded sometime - then you're worthless, die off.

They don't bother to consider that they're threatening peoples' lives. Don't even care about the consequences of their actions enough to be aware of what they're doing, with their almighty beancounting.

Criminal incompetence! Really criminal. Whoever's responsible should be charged with this wrongful death... because that's what it is. People who think like this should be taught some lessons (which they're so fond of doling out).

Oh, wait! I forgot, he was old and poor.

"The medical examiner is looking into whether Schur suffered from dementia, particularly after police found enough cash lying around in the home to cover his bills. His nephew William Walworth said Schur told him two years ago he had $600,000 in savings."


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,484724,00.html

Marvin Schur, center, stands with his nephews Gerald Walworth, left, and William Walworth in this photo taken in Pompano Beach, Flo.

William Walworth remembers the late Marvin E. Schur as their "Uncle Mutts," a U.S. Army medic wounded in World War II who earned the Purple Heart.

While browsing the Internet on Tuesday from his Florida home, a stunned Walworth recognized his uncle as someone else: the 93-year-old widower who froze to death inside his Bay City home.

"I just couldn't believe the story ... and then my lower jaw dropped when I saw it happened in Bay City, Michigan. It was like reading your own obituary," said Walworth, 66, of Ormond Beach, Fla.

(snip)

Marvin Schur and his late wife, Marian (Meisel) Schur, didn't have children. Nephew Bentley Bremer of Saginaw Township, said he hadn't seen his uncle in years.

Bremer's wife, Genevieve, said her husband didn't visit his uncle due to a "family feud" that developed several decades ago.

Bentley Bremer said he doesn't blame the city of Bay City for Marvin Schur's demise.

Gerald Walworth, 77, of Virginia, another nephew of Schur, described his late uncle as "a loner, other than his marriage to Marian."

more…
http://www.mlive.com/news/bay-city/index.ssf/2009/01/relatives_stunned_to_learn_mar.html