A woman who gained hundreds of pounds after witnessing her boyfriend’s murder says she has been deemed a ‘fire hazard’ and claims she has been barred from returning home.
Juaunia Bates, 33, of Wayne, Michigan, claimed she’s been denied re-entry into her eighth-floor apartment at Westchester Towers due to being a fire hazard as she currently weighs more than 800 pounds, she told Fox 2 Detroit.
Bates gained more than two hundred pounds after watching her boyfriend get murdered in 2018 and fear overtook her, causing her to board up at home.
‘It put me in a bad space to where I have, literally, trapped myself in my own body,’ she said.
The Michigander’s weight caused her to develop lymphedema – a build-up of fluid – in her legs that caused bedsores that got so bad it felt like a knife ‘being turned constantly’ in her limbs. So she called 911.
It took 15 paramedics and firefighters to get her out of the apartment through the elevator, after she declined to be tied to ropes and taken out the window.
‘I was scared,’ she told Fox 2.
Juaunia Bates, 33, of Wayne, Michigan, claimed she’s been denied re-entry into her eighth-floor apartment at Westchester Towers due to being a fire hazard as she currently weighs more than 800 pounds
Bates gained hundreds of pounds after watching her boyfriend get murdered in 2018 and fear overtook her, causing her to board up at home and gain more than 200 pounds
She was taken to Corewell Health Wayne Hospital and has yet to be discharged. Bates had to file an appeal with Medicare to even stay longer at the hospital.
She claims she doesn’t have a place to go afterward because her apartment complex deemed her a hazard – something the management company disputes.
‘Ms. Bates is welcome at Westchester Towers and we look forward to her returning to her home,’ Andrew F. Smith, of Princeton Enterprises, who manages the building, told Fox 2.
‘We are not aware of any restrictions that would prevent her from returning and wish her all the best.
It took 15 paramedics and firefighters to get her out of the apartment through the elevator, after she declined to be tied to ropes and taken out the window after she recently called 911 due to having painful fluid build-up in her legs
Management is reportedly working to get her a first-floor apartment ready, but she says she fears she won’t be able to care for herself once there.
‘I don’t have the right medical equipment,’ she told the outlet. ‘Medicare and Medicaid doesn’t pay for a lot of things.
‘I just needed help. I can’t keep living like this,’ she continued. ‘My worst fear was to go home and not getting any help and just die – that was my worst fear.’
Bates’ social worker is trying to help her get personal trainers and physical therapists to get her back to health.
She claims she doesn’t have a place to go afterward because her apartment complex deemed her a hazard – something the management company disputes. ‘We are not aware of any restrictions that would prevent her from returning and wish her all the best,’ Andrew F. Smith, of Princeton Enterprises, who manages the building, said
She also got a call from a rehabilitation center in Ohio that is ‘starting a bariatric unit and they want me to come out there,’ she told the local outlet.
Bates is hoping she’ll one day be able to ‘walk again and go outside and just be able to not be a burden on my family anymore because I feel like the biggest burden.’
She’s been relying on her 53-year-old mother for help recently.
The Midwesterner is hopeful for the future and said it will ‘only [be] up from here.’
‘I just can’t keep living like this. I want to be free.’