Elderly husband and wife Arthur and Madeleine Morris die in crash near their Catskills home because
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[quote]
Help should have been a phone call away.
An elderly Manhattan couple who got into a minor car accident at the end of their country house driveway were doomed to horrible deaths because they couldn’t get a cell phone signal.
Stuck in a ditch just 60 feet from their Catskills vacation home, Arthur and Madeleine Morris, devoted to each other for nearly 50 years, desperately dialed for help nine times.
Nine times, the call would not go through — so the panicked seniors tried to escape themselves, with disastrous results.
Arthur, 88, was smothered trying to crawl out of the Ford Fusion, while brave wife Madeleine, 89, trekked to a road but died of exposure after a rainy night under a tarp.
“What really has me choked up the most is the circumstances they died in,” grandson Jeantet Fields told the Daily News at the family’s upper West Side brownstone.
“Given the lives they lived, they should have had a better way out than that.”
A half-century after they met, the globe-trotting couple were still inseparable, enjoying retired life with trips to their vacation home in quaint Andes, N.Y.
ROBERT JEANTET
Arthur and Madeleine Morris, 88 and 89 respectively, during a trip to France.
Arthur, a Juilliard-educated music teacher, had heart disease and a hernia. His wife, a retired professor who survived the Nazi occupation in France, had two knee replacements but was mentally sharp.
Thunderstorms kept them inside their upstate refuge for much of May 3, but the sun had emerged by the time they ventured out around 4:30 p.m.
Arthur guided the sedan down the long driveway and was negotiating a hairpin turn at the end when he slid off the road and into a ditch.
The car rolled less than 15 feet down a steep embankment, hit a sapling and came to rest atilt on the driver’s side, state police said.
P.J. HARMER FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Vacation home of Arthur and Madeline Morris is in the woods where there is little cell phone service. Their car slid off the road near the house and hit a tree (shown with damage at upper left).
The slow-speed crash caused little damage to the car or its occupants, who tried five times in quick succession to call someone — with no luck.
At that point, the family believes, Arthur tried to get out. But because of the car’s steep angle, when he opened the door, he fell. His torso was wedged in an 8-inch space between the bottom of the door and the ground.
Madeleine may have frantically tried to pull him back in by his feet as his air supply was cut off. He was asphyxiated, probably within 10 minutes, the family said.
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:(
you accidentally the title
jesus christ that title
That is so amazingly sad.
She must of had to watch as he suffocated, oh my god this is horrible.
Snip, bad reading and silly worded article
Young Forum-Goer Dies from Cardiac Arrest by Typing Excessively Long Title Without Reprieve
This is so incredibly heartbreaking. :smith:
[I]Can you hear me now?[/I]
=(
They actually died from a car crash and exposure. The lack of a cell phone really had nothing to do with it. If this had happened before cell phones were invented would you say they died of unknown causes?
Cell phones are a bonus, a luxury, an extra, not something that stands between you and death. If all that stands between you and death is a cell phone, you done goofed my friend.
[QUOTE=cecilbdemodded;35919080]They actually died from a car crash and exposure. The lack of a cell phone really had nothing to do with it. If this had happened before cell phones were invented would you say they died of unknown causes?
Cell phones are a bonus, a luxury, an extra, not something that stands between you and death. If all that stands between you and death is a cell phone, you done goofed my friend.[/QUOTE]
You know, with reception, they could've called for emergency services and get rescued and treated.
Let me say it another way: For the cellphone to be worth a damn in an emergency you need to be in area with coverage. Just because you HAVE a cellphone doesn't automatically mean you can reach out and touch someone.
If they had crashed in an area with coverage and still not been able to make a call, that would have been a story.
[QUOTE=cecilbdemodded;35919080]They actually died from a car crash and exposure. The lack of a cell phone really had nothing to do with it. If this had happened before cell phones were invented would you say they died of unknown causes?
Cell phones are a bonus, a luxury, an extra, not something that stands between you and death. If all that stands between you and death is a cell phone, [B]you done goofed my friend.[/B][/QUOTE]
So uh, what would you have done in this situation?
Walked to my vacation home, 60 feet away according to the story. Even if you don't have the keys you can break in. That is, unless your vacation home is a bank vault.
The guy was as good as dead the moment he got wedged. Even if his wife had already called for help, that far out in the middle of nowhere he'd have died of lack of oxygen before anyone got there.
Well, 20 years ago the headline would have just been "Elderly husband and wife die". The fact that they had no cell coverage isn't really a factor.
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;35919586]Well, 20 years ago the headline would have just been "Elderly husband and wife die". The fact that they had no cell coverage isn't really a factor.[/QUOTE]
Uh, yes it is, quite obviously a factor in their deaths, probably the main factor. Also its not 20 years ago.
In this day and age cell phone coverage is to be expected in most areas, if not all areas and had they gotten coverage, they would not have died. Making it a pretty huge factor in their deaths. Exposure and suffocation is how they died, yes, they weren't killed physically by a cell phone, but you would have to be one of the fucking worst posters and stupidest people on earth not to see how important cell phone coverage was at that moment.
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;35919586]Well, 20 years ago the headline would have just been "Elderly husband and wife die". The fact that they had no cell coverage isn't really a factor.[/QUOTE]
As much as people love to rate dumb on posts like this, it's the simple truth. What's nice is that this article isn't holding their deaths up on some pedestal to represent the lacking cell phone coverage in rural areas, which is good. It focuses on their lives and the sadness of the manner in which they died, and that's a real tragedy.
Poor folk... It's almost as bad as that old timer who's wife got beaten up, raped and murdered, leaving him all alone to die :(
I think if you're in a main urban center, then yes cellphone coverage is to be expected.
Once you get out into rural or mountainous areas though, I don't see how you can take it for granted.
[QUOTE=cecilbdemodded;35919585]Walked to my vacation home, 60 feet away according to the story. Even if you don't have the keys you can break in. That is, unless your vacation home is a bank vault.
The guy was as good as dead the moment he got wedged. Even if his wife had already called for help, that far out in the middle of nowhere he'd have died of lack of oxygen before anyone got there.[/QUOTE]
[quote]At that point, the family believes, Arthur tried to get out. But because of the car’s steep angle, when he opened the door, he fell. His torso was wedged in an 8-inch space between the bottom of the door and the ground.[/quote]
They're 88-89 years old. You expect them to simply easily get out and walk to their house?
[quote]while brave wife Madeleine, 89, trekked to a road but died of exposure after a rainy night under a tarp.[/quote]
She might not have died of exposure if she took shelter 60 feet away from the car in their vacation home. Instead she somehow winds up under a tarp.
I hate to be the one to say it, but at their age, they should've been with at least one able-bodied person, and shouldn't have been out driving alone on unnavigable roads. I understand how the later years push people to separation from their concluding lives, but people so often overestimate themselves.
This is a really horrible end to 50 years of love and devotion.
Well, I read another article that says the wife walked a quarter mile to a neighbor's house, and died sitting on their porch. No one was home because the neighbors had left their vacation home the day before.
Her family says they don't know why she didn't break a window to get in. I'd guess she might have been so tired from the walk that she fell asleep, then it got cold enough that she just never woke up.
what shit journalism
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