Current Events – 93 Yr Old Freezes To Death In His Own Home

Marvin Schur's House

Everyone knows that a man’s home is supposed to be his castle, his refuge and his sanctuary from the rest of the world. Unfortunately this was not the case for 93-year-old Marvin Schur of Bay City Michigan. Mr. Schur was found frozen to death in his home on January 17, 2009; four days after a municipal power company limited his electricity usage.

Mr. Schur was in arrears to the power company for over $1000 so the power company installed a “limiter” on Mr. Schur’s house. A “limiter” restricts the amount of power that gets to the home and blows out like a fuse if consumption is too high. The power to the home can be restored when the device is reset. However, no one personally explained to Mr. Schur how the limiter worked. Therefore once the power went out, it never got turned back on.

Bay City officials have stated that limiters will be removed from all homes while the city’s electricity policy is being reviewed. Bay City Mayor, Charles Brunner, wants to make sure nothing like this happens again. Mr. Bruner said that the city has never had a problem with the use of limiters before and the power company only uses them after multiple notices are mailed out to residents of the home.

While I am glad that the power company policy is being reviewed, there is another serious matter here that is not being discussed. Many seniors living on their own have no support system in place. It is not my desire to infringe on senior’s rights, however, if Mr. Schur had someone visiting him on a daily basis, the power outage would have been reported within 24 hours and his death by hypothermia could have been prevented.

Sources:
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=6740934&page=1
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28858971/