93 Year-Old Man Froze to Death Inside Home (

BAY CITY, Mich. (AP)

January 26, 2009

A 93-year-old man froze to death inside his home just days after the municipal power company restricted his use of electricity because of unpaid bills, officials said.
Marvin E. Schur died “a slow, painful death,” said Kanu Virani, Oakland County’s deputy chief medical examiner, who performed the autopsy.
Neighbors discovered Schur’s body on Jan. 17. They said the indoor temperature was below 32 degrees at the time, The Bay City Times reported Monday.
“Hypothermia shuts the whole system down, slowly,” Virani said. “It’s not easy to die from hypothermia without first realizing your fingers and toes feel like they’re burning.”

Schur owed the municipal utility company over $1,000 in unpaid electric bills, Bay City Manager Robert Belleman told The Associated Press on Monday.
A city utility worker had installed a “limiter” device to restrict the use of electricity at Schur’s Bay City home on Jan. 13, Belleman said. The device limits power reaching a home and blows out like a fuse if consumption rises past a set level. Power is not restored until the device is reset.
The limiter device was tripped sometime between when it was installed and when Schur’s body was discovered, Belleman said. He didn’t know if anyone made personal contact with Schur to explain how the device works.

Abridged

SOURCE:   The Oakland Press

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