STORM2K

STUART, Fla. -- A 480-pound Martin County woman has died after emergency workers tried to remove her from the couch where she had remained for about six years.
Gayle Laverne Grinds, 40, died Wednesday, after a failed six-hour effort to dislodge her from the couch in her home. Workers say the home was filthy, and Grinds was too large to get up from the couch to even use the bathroom.

Everyone going inside the home had to wear protective gear. The stench was so powerful they had to blast in fresh air.

A preliminary autopsy on the the four-foot, ten-inch woman lists the cause of death as "morbid obesity." But officials want to know more about the circumstances inside the home.

Investigators say Grinds lived with a man named Herman Thomas, who says he tried to take care of her the best he could. He has told them he tried repeatedly to get her up, but simply couldn't. No charges have been filed, but officials are looking into negligence issues.

Emergency workers had to remove some sliding glass doors and lift the couch, with Grinds still on it, to a trailer behind a pickup truck. Removing her from the couch would be too painful, since her body was grafted to the fabric. After years of staying put, her skin had literally become one with the sofa and had to be surgically removed.

She died at Martin Memorial Hospital South, still attached to the couch.

Neighbors say they had no idea Grinds lived at the duplex, though they had seen Thomas and some children outside.


OK, so the really mean-spirited & dark side of me says she must have grown attached to that couch after 6 years.....

That's just wrong!

So who fed this woman? She was OBVIOUSLY fed. No one could give her a sponge bath or clean her house? A blatant case of abuse on many levels.

Definately.

Why a person would let themselves get morbidly obese to begin with?

Eric

that is nasty. Apparently no one really took care of her

alicia-w wrote:So who fed this woman? She was OBVIOUSLY fed. No one could give her a sponge bath or clean her house? A blatant case of abuse on many levels.

Bingo!

Imagine the stench! And your skin being stuck to a couch...okay I'm going get a salad for lunch now lol.

What a sad story. It makes me want to put down this candy I'm munching on and hit the treadmill. Like Ptracker, it does make you want to diet and for me, get busy walking! Poor lady....

Mary

This is yet another good reason to get your backside out the door and take a nice, long leisurely 9-mile jebwalk........

I'm so obsessed with my jebwalks that I would NEVER, EVER get fat!! My mom is concerned that I don't eat enough. Sure, I don't stuff my face with double chocolate cake, apple pie and candy every day after supper lol, I watch portion size like a hawk and regularly skip breakfast and sometimes lunch. Yeah I am NEVER gonna be fat, and I am the BEST jebwalker the world has ever seen!

Speaking of jebwalks, I am going to Nags Head (OBX) with my church singles group tomorrow!!! I'll be there until midday next Monday!

Boy am I gonna take another nice long jebwalk on that Nags Head beach!!!! I'm gonna get me some more nice pics of it too!!!! Oh, my right foot is hurting me some, but I will just go take a s-l-o-w jebwalk.

I can hardly wait!!!!

Yeah man NO fat here!!!

Get your fat backside off the couch and exercise!!

Jeb wrote:This is yet another good reason to get your backside out the door and take a nice, long leisurely 9-mile jebwalk........

I'm so obsessed with my jebwalks that I would NEVER, EVER get fat!! My mom is concerned that I don't eat enough. Sure, I don't stuff my face with double chocolate cake, apple pie and candy every day after supper lol, I watch portion size like a hawk and regularly skip breakfast and sometimes lunch. Yeah I am NEVER gonna be fat, and I am the BEST jebwalker the world has ever seen!

Speaking of jebwalks, I am going to Nags Head (OBX) with my church singles group tomorrow!!! I'll be there until midday next Monday!

Boy am I gonna take another nice long jebwalk on that Nags Head beach!!!! I'm gonna get me some more nice pics of it too!!!! Oh, my right foot is hurting me some, but I will just go take a s-l-o-w jebwalk.

I can hardly wait!!!!

Yeah man NO fat here!!!

Get your fat backside off the couch and exercise!!

I agree exercise is GREAT!

But skipping breakfast and sometimes lunch isn't...

Eric

And be thankful you have two good legs, good muscles, hips, and lungs so you can go on those walks. I'm interested in knowing why this woman became so sedentary in the first place. Was there some reason why she couldn't get up and exercise? I've seen cases before where a person is injured and never rehabs correctly so they can't exercise enough. Because of that, depression sets in and then one tragically gained pound leads to another.

Take it from someone who HAS to skip meals on occasion (for an entirely different reason), skipping them is not what you want to do on a regular basis! A smaller proportioned breakfast (half of a bagel, yogurt OR one banana) and small lunch (half of a turkey sandwich, OR a side salad) is much better than cutting out food completely. A body needs fuel. And fuel is good, healthy food! Jeb, your exercise plan is great, keep at it. More power to you....but, try adding small amounts of food along the way too. Just a friendly suggestion....

This is going to be a really dumb question possibly, but what is a jebwalker? Maybe I'm the last person on this planet to know that that term means....LOL

Mary

What is a jebwalker?

Simply put, a jebwalk is a walk. Thus, a jebwalker is a person who goes on walks. This applies more so if they are walking a long distance, the longer, the better. It's a sort of joke in my church singles group. Last year when we went to Nags Head, North Carolina for a few days, they watched me walk one of my long, long walks on the beach that took me nearly 3 hours. Then they dubbed it a "jebwalk" . So the name stuck and when I am out walking, my friends always say, Jeb's out on another of his 'jebwalks'.

It used to be that jebwalk referred to a beach walk, especially long beach walks, or walks in the snow or in blizzards. Then in 2004, I began to refer to all walks as jebwalks.

Now I am beginning to insist that jebwalk is a state of mind, a way of life. I am attempting to turn jebwalk into a philosophy. I am so obsessed with jebwalks that I finally got my own domain name: jebwalk.com.

Now, I know this isn't all this womens fault. But how can you let yourself get into that bad of shape!!! Even if you can't get up, that was 6 years ago, SIX!!!!!!!!!!! It may be part neglagance, but she could have done somethin as well.

I know this is a terrible thing to say and I hope nobody thinks bad of me but that is a true definition of a couch potato.

HurricaneGirl wrote:I know this is a terrible thing to say and I hope nobody thinks bad of me but that is a true definition of a couch potato.

Well, you're right about that aspect.

¿Seis años en la sofá? (Six years on the couch) that's just wrong!!

I know there are some medical folks on here. How is it possible that she and the couch became fused? It's just such a grotesque thought!

Take it from someone who has gone between a size 6 and a size 20 in her lifetime and back...I have found that most people, including myself, are eating to fill a void. Even if someone was feeding her, she fed herself for a long time and somehow just gave up. Someone should have sent a psychologist /psychiatrist to this woman's home a long time ago.

What I find amazing though is her location. Stuart, Florida. Unless someone put plywood up for her, what did she do during the recent hurricanes?