Apr 13, 2007 11:50 pm US/Eastern
Deceased Man Pulled Out Of L.I. House Of Squalor
Woman, 85, Found Inside Disgusting Home Alive
CBS 2's John Metaxas contributed to this report.
WOODMERE, N.Y. (CBS) ―
-
-
A large wooden board is now the exterior wall of Helen Bushwick's house. Firefighters had to tear the wall down in order to rescue her from inside.
CBS
-
-
A horrible stench and moans of an elderly woman trapped inside a two-story house that was filled with six foot piles of garbage and feces -- both human and animal -- alarmed residents living in the tiny, middle-class Woodmere community on Long Island.
CBS
Buried in garbage.
The body of an elderly man was pulled from a rotting pile of debris in a cluttered Long Island home on Friday, a day after an 85-year-old woman was pulled out alive.
For the second time in 24 hours, rescue workers combed through the garbage and debris mixed with human and animal feces piled to the ceiling in the Woodmere home.
Because there was so much garbage, a cadaver dog was brought in to search for yet another victim -- the home's owner, a man believed to be in his 90s.
"It's very sad," neighbor Lori Rubin said. "They are sad old people. For a long time we didn't see the man."
On Thursday, authorities said the stench was unbearable as they searched for and eventually found 85-year-old Helen Bushwick, who was weak, dehydrated and buried under a six-foot pile of rubbish.
Authorities said she was rescued after she could be heard crying for help, buried in rubbish stacked from the floor to the ceiling. Firefighters entered the house to find massive amounts of garbage, hamburger meat, and wild animal waste believed to be from raccoons and possum, human waste, boxes, metal scrap, papers, and furniture littered about.
That's when they saw the toes of the trapped woman.
"They thought they heard somebody moaning. They couldn't even find her," Woodmere Fire Chief David DeSetta told CBS 2. "We went in, found her buried. She was alive, and my men pulled her out."
Suffering from hypothermia, the woman was quickly rushed to a local hospital. Woodmere neighbors said Bushwick was a fixture on Carman Avenue for decades after retiring from entertainment law. She's been said to be in "poor" condition since being removed from the house.
Neighbors said they noticed something was wrong when they hadn't seen her either.
"She would walk to the food store a lot. I would ask her if she wanted a ride, but she wouldn't take a ride," said Mike Aronson.
"(She'd be) walking to the supermarket to buy one item everyday, because I have a feeling she didn't have electricity to refrigerate anything," said Gary Kurlander, another neighbor.
But recently Bushwick's walks ceased, and neighbors say they hadn't seen her in about a week. With an out of town brother who owns the house, and a sister in Ohio, she had no immediate family to call, so concerned neighbors called 911. Firefighters had to empty the house of litter just to take her out.
"She has raccoons in the back. She didn't have a refrigerator. Her food was in the backyard, and basically animals running around" said Ken Mann, another neighbor.
Neighbors told CBS 2 they had often called town and county officials about the squalor, but officials said Bushwick was lucid and refused all help.
It's not yet known how long Bushwick was trapped in her house.
Then on Friday after about 20 minutes of sniffing the signal came. The dog had found his man, but this victim, also buried under the garbage, was dead.
"The victim was near where the first victim was found last night," Nassau County Police Det. Sgt. Anthony Repalone said.
It is not known how long the victims were trapped inside, but the medical examiner has been called in to determine the cause of death.
Though the victims have been found, authorities have not finished their jobs at the house. They've already filled one dumpster with debris, but they said the home remains full of garbage and the cleanup could take quite some time.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Comments