480-Pound Woman Dies After Six Years On Couch
‘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. [..]
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.’
