Gene Hackman and His Wife Found Dead in Their Home

[sighyoung]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewkkkvkzn9o

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Carbon monoxide?

[cardsfantx]

and the dog also? yeah seems like it would have to be something like that?? so sad....

[CardsofSTL]

I know he was 95 but it still makes me sad. And the other circumstances are odd.

Looks like there's a few suspicious details.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewkkkvkzn9o

[Fat_Bulldog]

Weird circumstances

[sighyoung]

So Betsy Arakawa died of an incredibly rare but deadly disease, and Hackman's dementia was so pronounced that he couldn't take care of himself.

That's wild, but I believe it. When my mother fell at her home fourteen years ago, her dementia (though milder than Hackman's) was severe enough that she couldn't call anybody for help. It was only because neighbors checked on her every day that she was rescued, and ultimately, I needed to put her in a skilled-nursing facility near me for the rest of her life.

It's interesting because Hackman and Arakawa had the resources to be independent, but it doesn't seem like they set up a system whereby someone could check on them. I'm not blaming anyone--it's just really tragic.

My parents were fiercely independent (children of the Depression, deathly afraid of nursing homes or even medical intervention), and I learned the hard way. My father died because he wouldn't go to a doctor, but he had blood clots because of heart arrhythmia caused by Parkinson's disease, and by the time he became too weak (clotting in his colon damaged his intestines irrevocably), his health problems were too severe to be treated.

Which is a long way of saying that good neighbors and power-of-attorney papers saved my mother's life, and that kind of support is absolutely necessary for older adults.

[ghostrunner]

It’s depressing to read online comments on this. So many people not believing what’s a very plausible explanation. 95 and Alzheimer’s. Wife died first. It’s pretty well known he was getting extremely frail. Maybe a bit odd that his wife couldn’t make a call before realizing how sick she was, but being a caretaker has to take a toll and I can see how you’d just put your own health to the side until it’s too late.

[CardsofSTL]

It’s depressing to read online comments on this. So many people not believing what’s a very plausible explanation. 95 and Alzheimer’s. Wife died first. It’s pretty well known he was getting extremely frail. Maybe a bit odd that his wife couldn’t make a call before realizing how sick she was, but being a caretaker has to take a toll and I can see how you’d just put your own health to the side until it’s too late.

Hantavirus can present as a respiratory ailment and then escalate very quickly. My thought is she had no idea how sick she truly was.

The whole thing is depressing.

[ghostrunner]

It’s depressing to read online comments on this. So many people not believing what’s a very plausible explanation. 95 and Alzheimer’s. Wife died first. It’s pretty well known he was getting extremely frail. Maybe a bit odd that his wife couldn’t make a call before realizing how sick she was, but being a caretaker has to take a toll and I can see how you’d just put your own health to the side until it’s too late.

Hantavirus can present as a respiratory ailment and then escalate very quickly. My thought is she had no idea how sick she truly was.

The whole thing is depressing.

Yeah. I figured it was something like that. People just can’t accept they don’t understand everything and when you have a question about something like this there’s usually a reasonable answer. I thought carbon monoxide at first.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

I thought carbon monoxide at first.

Me too. But now I'm thinking something else...