Please do not read this post if you’re thinking about eating anytime soon.
Seattle police are investigating a horrific case of neglect after officers found an 83-year-old woman, covered in maggots and living in filth in her South Seattle home.
Police received a call from a woman who said she’d been unable to get in contact with her elderly cousin for several weeks. The woman told police she’d visited the home and heard someone talking inside but could not get anyone to answer the door.
On December 6th, an officer visited the home—in the 4900 block of 26th Ave S—and found a door to the house slightly cracked. In a police report, the officer notes that there was “a very strong odor of urine and rotting flesh” emanating from the house.
Inside the house, the officer writes, the smell became even stronger and there were flies and 2-3 foot high piles of garbage everywhere.
The officer found the 83-year-old woman in a bedroom—also filled with, the report notes, “trash and clutter”—lying on sheets covered in “dirt, feces urine and blood.”
Medics at the scene examined the woman and asked her questions about her age and the date. The police report notes she seemed “disoriented and was uncooperative” and medics decided to take the woman to Harborview. As they began to move her, they “noticed that large portions of her skin…were sloughing off of her body.” The skin “appeared infected and was filled with maggots.”
While police and medics were searching the home, the 83-year-old woman’s daughter showed up carrying a bag of adult diapers. The daughter told police that she lives at the house with her mother—although the police report notes this seems unlikely due to the state of the house—who, she says, has been diagnosed with dementia. The daughter told police she was “glad” her mother was being taken to the hospital.
SPD is still investigating the case and charges have not yet been filed.
Oh, this is HIGHLY likely. The people who used to live next door to my grandmother managed for years in exactly this same level of “clutter”.
It got so bad the last couple of years before she moved, that she couldn’t stand to enter their house; which would have been difficult in any case, since the place was a veritable labyrinth of stacked newspapers, magazines, mail and bags of garbage. Unfortunately, they were both otherwise lucid, so there wasn’t really anything anyone could do about it.
Actually, the maggots were probably a good thing as far as the infections were concerned – they would eat the unhealthy flesh. So, ironically, the huge piles of garbage may have been the only thing keeping her alive as long as this. Go, maggots!
Presumably, they’ll be charging the daughter?
@2,
I hope so. What are the odds that the daughter was pocketing a healthy portion of the woman’s Social Security checks?
A lot of times they resist actions that would result in them being taken care of.
This isn’t that unusual. I’ll bet the daughter actually is really happy with the end result.
does this remind anyone else of the movie “seven?” this scene would have fit perfectly.
Maggots would clean her wounds of necrotic tissue but if the maggots were infected, which is likely, then they wouldn’t help but hurt.
time to look at the puppycam again
The maggots would be just as happy to eat the live tissue; you’re supposed to remove them when they get into the part that still bleeds and hurts.
I wonder if the maggots like watching the puppycam.