OnePhatMan

Last year, I wrote about Gayle Laverne Grinds, a 480-pound woman who stayed on her couch so long her skin grafted to it. Her story was a sad one, truly horrific, and became the basis for the first episode of this season on Nip/Tuck. Gayle was one of the forgotten, people so large they don’t leave their homes any more because they’re not able.

I never thought I’d read another story that touched me the way hers did.

Until yesterday.

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. - A fire destroyed a mobile home, killing a 600-pound, homebound man who could not be moved out in time despite the efforts of neighbors and firefighters.

Timothy Lee Morris, 45, called 911 from his home when it caught fire Saturday afternoon but couldn’t get out by himself, fire officials said. His daughters, ages 8 and 13, summoned neighbors, but they were unable to move him.

“He was in the front room. We tried and tried to yank him out,” said neighbor Clinton Turner. “He kept saying, ‘Help,’ but we couldn’t get him out.”

(full story)

Words escape me. I’m having trouble just wrapping my mind around the horror of this whole tragic situation.

Put yourself in the shoes of some of the people in this story for a moment.

Imagine being Tim Morris, and watching a fire in your home, crawling towards you and devouring everything in its path. You call desperately for help, but there isn’t any. You send your two little girls to get the neighbors to help you, and neighbors come.

They try to move you but you’re trapped, held in place by a body that at some point ceased being a friend and became an enemy.

You wait for the firemen, watching the spreading fire with wide eyes. Maybe you’re trying to keep your daughters calm, reassuring them with words of faith and hope. You struggle to move yourself away from the flames, but you can’t.

Because you’re too big.

What must have been going through his mind then? None of us knows what his thoughts were, though we may suspect we do. Did he have any regrets? I don’t know. Would I, if I were in his situation? Yes.

But I’m not him.

Invariably, there are people reading this right now who’re thinking serves him right, the pig or he shouldn’t have been so damn big, but you know what? Until you’ve walked a mile in someone’s shoes, you don’t know anything about them, so feel free to find a place up your ass for that attitude. You’re not helping anyone.

Think for a moment about being one of his daughters.

How must it be to stand next to someone you love more than anyone else, helpless, while death dances like a dervish just across the room? Can you even imagine what that must have been like? I can’t even begin to fathom what it would be like to watch my father die while he cried out for help that wasn’t able to save him. The only thing that could have made this story worse is if he’d actually burned to death in front of everyone, instead of dying from smoke inhalation.

What about being a firefighter, duty-bound to save lives but impotent in the face of this crisis? You struggle and you fight to save a man, to the point that you end up at the hospital being treated for smoke inhalation and heat exhaustion, and you’re still not able to get him out in time. How must that feel?

This is a terrible story all around, and while I don’t know the circumstances of how Tim Morris ended up at 600 pounds, I know that his weight was an impedence at a time when his life was literally in the balance. If he wanted a second chance at the end—and again, I can’t speak for him—it was too late.

As always, though, there’s good news. While there’s always a point of no return with regards to your health, the chances are good that if you’re reading this, you haven’t gotten there yet. If you’re still alive, you have the chance to change.

And if you’re dead, email me because I know how we can make a lot of money.

There’s but one question: what will you do with the time you have left? Make your decision, because one day your life may depend on it.

health+and+wellness, firemen, weight