This is horrific.
But how is it that this couple - who had family members - could go four days without being missed?
The children should have been checking on them way more regularly...
Horrible!
Talk about getting shafted!
I agree with Duster, they are 88 and 90 and no one does daily checks on them?
They went out together after 60 years sad but sweet
In nursing homes they have several devices to alert staff that the elderly person is in distress and need help.
Why didn't they install them as well as a telephone? Nice old couple who met a tragic end, but they should have known better.
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I agree. They should've installed a phone in the elevator. My ex-husband's family has an elevator in their home and there's a phone in there. It comes in handy. His late father, who had congestive heart failure, used it to call us when he was in distress and couldn't get up out of the chair in there. He managed to get in, but not out.
Poor couple. The part about them lying facing each other in the fetal position is sad and sweet.
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Lots of old people aren't comfortable with technology in general and cell phones in particular. Which is too bad. In this case, carrying a cell phone could've saved their lives. (If they could figure out how to use it )
That's why the good old land line corded phone still has some major advantages-- you can't accidentally leave it somewhere, no batteries to run down, works if the power is off, automatically gives your number and address to 911 operators in most locations, and elderly people know how to use.
Horrible. I can't believe no one called them, could not get an answer and did not check on them.
In the article it said according to Giorgia state law, there must be phone in an elevator. There was a phone jack in the elevator but no phone. It is the responsibility of the home owner to supply a phone to adhere to the law. The elevator did pass inspection in 1991. That just seems like a long time ago, I would have gotten it checked out, especially if it wasnt working that well lately. Sad but preventable, I'm glad they went together, I hope it was peaceful and quick.
At the very least, there should have been some kind of alarm button inside the elevator to broadcast to the neighbors that there was some kind of emergency.
Private elevator or no, it seems odd to me that any company installing one would do it without some kind of safety feature.
"I don't want the bodies, just the pictures."
--Castle
Not sure what the law is in the states, but over here there has to be a yearly inspection. However, this applies to commercial and high-rise residential elevators, maybe domestic use up to a certain height is exempted.
Depend when the elevator was installed. For all we know it could have been installed decades ago when mandatory laws in respect to alarm devices (including telephones) were non-existent.
I am a sick puppy....woof woof!!!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Carping the living shit out of the Diem. - Me!!
http://www.pinterest.com/neilmpenny
I think the article I read here said that their son had last visited them in February...5 months is a long time to not visit your very elderly parents.
I am a sick puppy....woof woof!!!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Carping the living shit out of the Diem. - Me!!
http://www.pinterest.com/neilmpenny
"We always said we hoped they would go together because if one went, the other wouldn't survive long," said the couple's son, Wesley Wadsworth of Blue Bell, Pa. "They were so dependent on each other."
Gee thanks son
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"I will be buried in a spring loaded casket filled with confetti, and a future archaeologist will have one awesome day at work."
This baffles me. How is that an elevator can be inpected in 1991, then go 19 years without another one?
Sadly, I suspect that it was neither...
Understandable in your case though, Neil - you live several continents away. This couple's son was, what, a few states over?
That's what I was thinking. I thought (incorrectly ??) that elevators usually came with either a telephone or some sort of alarm system to alert the outside should someone become stuck. Otherwise, I'd never want to use one where I the sole inhabitant of a dwelling.
Also to die of heat exhaustion, pretty bad; Plus to have slowly died trapped in a closet sized elevator with another person. What a sad ending for the couple.
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