Maybe she had some drinks and after getting in trouble, decided it would be better to commit suicide than to go to rehab.
The fact that she got a meal does not, to me, seem to indicate that she was probably drinking booze as well. I’m sure they sell water and tea there.
It doesn’t mean she wasn’t either. I’ll wait to see what they say about her alcohol levels, but in an airport unless they have changed the layout drastically since the last time I flew has other options to eat at also.
Almost any place that did not serve alcohol (fast food, a sandwich shop, etc) would be a better option than a sports bar for an alcoholic on the way to rehab. That’s temptation to be avoided.
That’s true.
I don’t think that bit of information gives us any knowledge in either direction.
Dealing with my sister - in and out of rehab, on and off the wagon, fly her back and forth when we think things are horrid only to have her sober up, go home, and play the same game again in six months (my mother claims she is “about done” - I’ve been done for a year) - I have to completely agree.
Its very difficult for my sister to fly sober. There is a long wait to board the plane - and the airport bar right there! The flight is uncomfortable and noisy - and the stewardess will bring you a bottle of whiskey for $5.
And apparently, when the rehab staff meets them at the airport - nearly every single one of them gets off that plane stinking drunk. And nearly every one of them doesn’t want to go to rehab. (And, apparently, it isn’t uncommon for the rehab graduates to get drunk at the airport bar and send emails to the people they were in rehab with that “it didn’t work”).
If you are serious about getting someone into rehab - you have to make sure they get there. And they need to want to go. But you have to do both.
They don’t have rehab facilities in New York? Why Arizona? And yeah, you don’t put somebody like that on a cross-country plane.
She did it to herself, plain and simple; death by misadventure.
However, ISTM the cops were negligent in leaving her alone cuffed up like that. IMHO, that’s just not sound procedure.
Zebra, I’ll agree that there’s no evidence. In fact that’s what I told Tomndebb upthread.
But I’m afraid that given we’re talking about an alcoholic, and not even a recovering alcoholic, on a trip to rehab - I’m going to assume that she did take advantage of her solitary status to sneak a few drinks until, and unless, the toxicology report indicates that she was, in fact, sober.
I may be cutting myself with how I’m handling Occam’s Razor. I’ve done it before, and will again. But that’s how it looks to me from my experience with having seen a number of alcoholics and drug addicts in group therapy sessions. It’s a constant theme, that all of them have ‘snuck’ drinks when they thought they were out of sight of their minders, or the people they were trying to hide their use from.
I can’t back up Dangerosa’s claim that rehab people expect to find these travelers drunk when they pick them up at the airports, but it sure rings true to me.
People often go to rehab far from home. It may be that they like a certain rehab center. It may be that they want to pass it off as a “vacation.” A few of these centers have reputations that create pull - certainly we have one here in Minnesota that people come from all over the world based on the reputation of the center.
At family week at the center we were at, there were people from all over the country - and a few locals.
You know what they say, rehab is for quitters.
I kid, I kid.
The thing that bothers me is that if she was such a hardcore alcoholic that she couldn’t pass through an airport without drinking, she needed a sober companion. If she was not drinking and freaked out from alcohol withdrawl, she shouldn’t have been in a situation to be travelling alone. And if she was just flat that mentally unstable, she shouldn’t have been travelling alone, period.
Seems like her family would have known about any one of these scenarios (and all 3 might turn out to be wrong, I don’t know), she sure appears to have been way to fragile to embark on this journey unescorted. And if that’s the case, her family should have taken some steps to insure her safety.
I don’t know if airlines do it for adults, but I’ve seen young children travelling alone and the airline will assign somebody to keep an eye on them. Hindsight being 20/20 and all, it sure would have been nice if somebody could have kept an eye on this lady.
I doubt that the airlines would be willing to offer this service to an adult. Frankly, it’s just not their job and they’re trying to run a business. <insert obvious joke here>.
So, she was drunker than a skunk and on prescription drugs to boot…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071109/ap_on_re_us/airport_death
Looks like it was an accident but sad none the less.
:dubious:
She racked up all these marks in only a few minutes?
I’m glad they aren’t ruling it a suicide.
It’s not saying she got all those injuries in the minutes before she died, just that she had those injuries, period. She did plenty of resisting as the police dragged her from the gate. The bruises and marks on her arms and legs are likely a result of that.
The only thing that bothers me is that the cops handcuffed an obviously disturbed woman to a bench and left her completely alone. They didn’t have to give her hugs and kisses, but someone should have kept an eye on her.
Her husband called the airport three times, worried because his wife was “depressed and suicidal”.
And she’s an alcoholic.
And she’s going to rehab.
WTF, sir? Was she supposed to tattoo “do not leave unsupervised” on her forehead? The woman shouldn’t have been allowed to go to the bathroom by herself, let alone sent to the airport for a cross country flight.
No dog in this fight, but previous posts to this thread has the husband stating that he stayed home with the kids to lessen the trauma of their mother leaving and their separation from her.
Don’t know if that was an “after-the-fact” excuse for not accompanying her, but it could also be valid.
How law enforcement, once they detained her, left her unattended is beyond me. Lots of bad decisions here (her traveling alone, then throwing a shit-fit, etc.), but this is most egregious. I would have thought there were protocols for something like an obviously intoxicated/handcuffed detainee.
Judging from the security camera footage I’ll condede this woman was no prize, at least not at the end—but I catch a whiff of bullshit on this one.
As an alcoholic in recovery, I will say that in my opinion, the husband is completely ignorant of alcoholism, is a liar, or an idiot.
Sending her off cross-country alone to get sober? What a joke. The fact that she may have convinced him that this was the “independent” thing to do just shows his ignorance.
Of course she drank in that bar- it’s what we do. Only with some sort of (drastic) measures do we NOT drink in that situation.
Any half-way decent counselor would have told him that sending her alone was a recipe for certain disaster. If he couldn’t accompany her, then she needed a friend, relative or therapist.
I feel badly for everyone involved, but the family is living with the results of giving in to her bullshit one last time. 