"... a disease linked to rodents that can cause respiratory failure in rare cases, the authorities said on Friday. The revelation that the famous and reclusive couple had died of natural causes put to rest much of the speculation that followed the discovery of their bodies on Feb. 26. But it also raised new questions about the state of mind of Mr. Hackman, who investigators said had severe Alzheimer’s disease, and why the couple was not discovered sooner...."
The NYT reports.
Terribly sad to think of him, suffering from dementia and alone in the house with his wife's dead body. Had she been shouldering the entire responsibility to care for him, with no one backing her up, so that she could die and he would be helpless and no one would notice for a week?
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Was she being treated?
Free at last..
"Had she been shouldering the entire responsibility to care for him, with no one backing her up, so that she could die and he would be helpless and no one would notice for a week?"
I mean who at 65 thinks they're gonna suddenly drop dead with friggin Hanta virus in New Mexico?
Asians are raised with a particularly strong sense of taking care of their elderly even if you are alone, but yeah, if you're taking care of someone who has dementia or Alzheimer's, you really need to think about having backup. What if you're in a car wreck?
It's not like they couldn't afford to have even on-site caretakers, was it?
What about the dog?
Some of my parents' friends had experiences that made me think: don't retire to a remote spot, no matter how beautiful.
Wow. Quite heartbreaking and tragic.
Ah man.... that really sucks. RIP to both, a sad ending. I read somewhere that one of Hackman's daughters hadn't spoken with them for some time, and wondered what was up with that.
From what the articles have been saying about hantavirus, it’s slow then fast. The initial period just seems like a flu, then you have 24-48 hours of fluid in the lungs.
She probably soldiered through the first symptoms, if only because it’s a pain to add your own doctor appointments to your spouse’s. Then when it got worse, she didn’t have enough time to undo the decision.
He was found in the mud room - maybe he made a last ditch attempt to leave the house and get help? Wonder if she altered the doors and locks to make it impossible for him to wander off.
A $10/month LifeAlert subscription could have saved them both….
JSM
Sad in so many ways. Life is fleeting and tenuous.
Something similar happened to Nabokov's wife and child when he was butterfly collecting in the Southwest, living in a rented home back in the 1950s --- they (the wife and son) drank water from the tap at a rented house (cabin?) in the Sonora desert, he (Nabokov, the fussy writer) probably only drank liquids from bottles, and there was a dead rat in the water tank that the tap water flowed through --- they (the wife and son) got very sick, he was all right. It worked out eventually, they recovered, perhaps because he did not drink water from the tap and was compos mentis enough, at the right time, to be able to find medical help. With respect to the present case, it is very sad nobody was there for the husband and wife and dog who died. I guess the lesson might be this: However rich or famous we are, however lucky we are in this world, we need to pay attention to those around us, to what they might be going through in this difficult world. Here, it seems nobody was at fault, not the actor, not his wife, and certainly not the dog - but that being said, old couples should have someone, somewhere, checking in on them more frequently than once a week. Just saying.
Severe dehydration will commonly end in heart failure. Seems like that's what got both the guy and the dog.
Unfortunate to read, but so was news of the death at all. I suspect that being together in their home was what they wanted, if not exactly an end like this.
Betsy Arakawa had no children. Gen Hackman 3- though I didn't see if they were all alive.
And apparently they didn't keep much in touch with anyone. At all.
If both my wife and I failed to post something in a family chat board on any particular day- someone would call us. A child or sibling or in law. And if neither of us answered- the closest living relative would be contacted to go check on us.
Whenever my sister-in-law's phone died because she didn't pay it that month- we'd get a call to go check on her. I finally solved that problem- I put her on my phone plan. Minor cost for me, major for her...But everyone on the group chat expects to see everyone else on the group chat daily. There's actually several of them. OUR family, me and her and the children and their spouses. HER family- my in-laws and their spouses. And a few others. There is no MY family group. For reasons...
He was 95 with alzhiemers. He probably didn't know what day it was. She probably got sick, thought it was the flu, and when she realized it was much more serious, it was too late. It is strange that will all his money, they didn't have a medical hotline or a maid that paid a visit every day.
I'm sorry the dog died and the wife. But going on and on about how terrible it was for Gene to die is ridiculous. He was 95 was dementia.
No one appears to be questioning the veracity of the NYT's Hackman article? At least be consistent 'Althusians' (ht Mr Begley).....
Bich, that was awfully pathetic, even for someone as pathetic as you are.
I care for my elderly mother and neither of us contact outside people on a daily basis. So, if we both died it might not get noticed inside of a week (probably my youngest sister would check in if she couldn't reach my mother or myself by phone inside of a day of calling, but she also might go a week without calling, too). Me dying isn't a danger to my mother yet since she is still mentally competent.
Yancey, many of us are in a similar situation. When my parents were old, I checked in with them frequently, and they understood --- they always responded within a day or two. I remember when Hurricane Andrew hit Florida (I was living in DC) and one of my friends (who also lived in DC), with elderly parents in Florida, could not get in touch with his parents for two days and he got in a car and drove down to check on them. It took him a couple days to find them --- it could have killed him, the stress, he was in his fifties and not all that healthy. This is not an easy world for old people!
This article is based on a public release of information by the Sheriff and not the usual anonymous sources that Maggie Haberman makes up.
Oh, man - that sucks.
Got a friend who's in his late 70s with some health issues - I've been trying to get him to contact me daily just to make sure he's okay.
He knows how to do it - he's just... stubborn. Sigh.
“No one appears to be questioning the veracity of the NYT's Hackman article?”
Well, since you bring it up….
It does seem odd. Unless they had retreated into Howard Hughes levels of eccentricity, it scarcely seems credible that a wealthy actor who required 24-hr. care had no caregiver other than his wife. That suggests a possibility of abuse at worst, mental ill health (on her part) at best.
I’m not disputing the facts. But the reasons are opaque.
The only blessings in this sad story are (1) the particular hantavirus that is endemic to the Four Corners area typically kills fast, and (2) because of his Alzheimer’s Hackman might not even have realized his wife was deceased.
The queen died and then the king died, is a fact. The queen died and then the king died of a broken heart, is a story.
"This article is based on a public release of information by the Sheriff and not the usual anonymous sources that Maggie Haberman makes up."
To have understood that distinction required more brain power than Bich has with his 89 IQ.
To the best that I can determine, the last time Hackman is recorded speaking was on a cooking show from 2008.
It is very sad to think of him spending a week alone after his wife died even if he might not have been fully aware of what was happening.
Gene had his wife but it sounds like his wife didn’t have anyone to help her or check in on her. Caring for a 95 year old with Alz is incredibly stressful. You think she would hire someone to come in and help at least a few days a week.
No matter the intensity of love involved, caregiving is relentless and isolating. Putting your own aches and pains in the background to care for the person at risk becomes second nature. In this era when grown children often live far away- or have their own families to deal with- I really wish we could develop a good, organized system to check in on and offer regular relief caregiving to families that struggle with this. The demand to be superhuman creates a lot of guilt, and the outsize burden puts the primary patient at risk.
They died as they lived. RIP to them both, and their dog.
My mom and stepfather had what is termed a simultaneous death. My mom was bedridden and my stepfather got a UTI and didn't get medical help. They didn't let anyone into the house. It wasn't unusual to be out of contact with them. I had to call the police to do a welfare check. He died first and my mom died of lack of water and food. Even though my sister called my mom daily, it was ten days until the police came. I thought that in Gene"s case his wife had died and he couldn't life without her care. It is not unusual for people to isolate themselves from the rest of the world. I think dying at the same time is sometimes peaceful.
Incommunicado - odd, is it not, for someone whose film career included a movie called The Conversation.
LLR-democratical Rich: "Kakistocracy said...
No one appears to be questioning the veracity of the NYT's Hackman article? At least be consistent 'Althusians' (ht Mr Begley)...."
That's your main takeaway from David Hogg's directives to you?
I didn’t even know he was sick.
I had something like hantavirus after I tore down an old tree house. It took me a while to figure how out the roof kept squirrel droppings dry, desiccated and then airborne when disturbed.
An episodic dry cough that progressively stole my ability to resume breathing again. Scary feeling. Finally, the fire department rescue had to come one night when I couldn’t resume breathing after a coughing fit. ER just gave me an inhaler. Had I just hosed down the interior of the tree house with water before demolition probably could have avoided it.
It really is sad. However, this was the best kind of press conference. Betsy died of hantavirus, and they explained how to avoid it More press conferences about rare deaths should include this information. Eg. Rip tides, mountain lion attacks...
This breaks my heart:
When the couple’s bodies were discovered, officials also found a dog dead in a crate in the home. It is possible that the dog, an Australian Kelpie mix named Zinna, could have died from dehydration or starvation, the state veterinarian said. A necropsy is being conducted on the dog."
It's somewhat more difficult than is publicly realized to find a paid "caregiver" who will not cause difficulties in one way or another - neglect, theft etc. There are millions of great caregivers out there, the kindest people you'll ever meet and I've been fortunate but you hear stories from contemporaries. Apparently, there is a shortage of health care workers and so at this moment almost anyone who needs a job can get hired in one or another of the healthcare fields. It's like the restaurant business in terms of the pool of workers and the consequent turnover in areas with shortages of workers. Trust but verify. Or - as perhaps the Hackmans were doing - avoid the problems by not hiring a caregiver as long as one partner is mentally alert. But then - as perhaps happened to the Hackmans - the mentally alert one gets a fast-moving illness and the other ... dies a little later. And no one was checking, though I have no doubt the Hackman kids will be checking on the will.
Old age ain't for kids, as a wise old Yankee woman once told me.
Thank you, Althouse. Imma call my 91 year old Mom now.
Well, at least he didn't throw his support behind Mumia Abu Jamal, like his foe Paul Newman did. when you eat Paul Newman products, know that you are donating to get cop killers out of prison.
SAG-AFTRA talks a lot about old actors' homes, and there were a few around even before unionization caught on. If the Hackmans had stayed in Southern California, they might not have had such an unpleasant end.
Hantavirus came from Korea apparently. It's said that there is a different strain in every animal that carries the disease. I do wonder why, with all the bubonic plague and such in rodent burrows out west, diseases play so little a part in Westerns. I also wonder if the rumors and propaganda about biological weapons in the Korean War might have had something to do with outbreaks of hantavirus.
I was wondering why Gene hadn't worked in so long. According to IMDB, his last acting job was in 2004.
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