Boyfriend: Phobia caused woman’s 2-year bathroom stay

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- “After a while, you kind of get used to it,” boyfriend says
- Police say woman lived in bathroom for two years, didn’t want to leave
- Her skin had grown around seat of toilet, police say; it went with her to hospital
- Boyfriend says he brought her food, water, clothes in bathroom

WICHITA, Kansas (AP) — A 35-year-old woman who sat on her boyfriend’s toilet for so long that her body was stuck to the seat had a phobia about leaving the bathroom, the boyfriend said.

“She is an adult; she made her own decision,” said her boyfriend, Kory McFarren. “I should have gotten help for her sooner; I admit that. But after a while, you kind of get used to it.”

The case drew nationwide attention after Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the Ness City woman’s skin had grown around the seat in the two years she apparently was in the bathroom.

“We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital,” Whipple said. “The hospital removed it.”

McFarren, 36, said he can’t be certain how long Pam Babcock stayed in the bathroom because “time just went by so quick I can’t pinpoint how long.” He said beatings she received in her childhood caused her phobia.

“It just kind of happened one day; she went in and had been in there a little while, the next time it was a little longer. Then she got it in her head she was going to stay — like it was a safe place for her,” McFarren said.

But McFarren said she moved around in the bathroom during that time, bathed and changed into the clothes he brought her. He brought food and water to her. They had conversations and had an otherwise normal relationship — except it all happened in the bathroom.

McFarren said he finally called police February 27 after he became worried because Babcock was acting groggy — like she didn’t know what was going on, except she was awake.

What emergency responders found when they went into bathroom has left residents of this small western Kansas town buzzing, and law enforcement officials incredulous.

Police found the clothed woman sitting on the toilet, her sweat pants down to mid-thigh. She was “somewhat disoriented,” and her legs looked like they had atrophied, Whipple said.

“She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body,” Whipple said. “It is hard to imagine. … I still have a hard time imagining it myself.”

She initially refused emergency medical services, but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.

“She said that she didn’t need any help, that she was OK and did not want to leave,” he said.

Whipple said the county attorney will determine whether any charges should be filed against McFarren.

McFarren, who works at an antique store, said he has been taking care of Babcock for the 16 years they have lived together. He insisted that he tried to coax her out of the bathroom every day.

“And her reply would be, `Maybe tomorrow,”‘ Whipple said. “According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom.”

She was reported in fair condition Wednesday at a hospital in Wichita, about 150 miles southeast of Ness City. Whipple said she has refused to cooperate with medical providers or law enforcement investigators.

Babcock has an infection in her legs that has damaged her nerves, and there is a possibility she may wind up in a wheelchair, McFarren said.

James Ellis, a neighbor, said he had known the woman since she was a child, but that he had not seen her for at least six years.

Babcock had a tough childhood after her mother died at a young age and apparently was usually kept inside the house as she grew up, he said.

“It really doesn’t surprise me,” Ellis said. “What surprises me is somebody wasn’t called in a bit earlier.”

“I don’t think anybody can make any sense out of it,” Ellis said.

Fur Flies at Beauty Pageant (But It’s Not What You Think)

In Eastern Shore’s Muskrat Country, Contestants Keep Two Traditions Alive

GOLDEN HILL, Md. — Contestant No. 1 sashayed down the catwalk, her hair bouncing in blonde curls, and smiled a radiant beauty-queen smile. She picked up a furry dead rodent about the size of a football.

Then she took out a very sharp four-inch blade and stuck the point in just above the animal’s tail.

“Then,” she said, narrating the incision as sweetly as a Miss America contestant talking about world peace, “you’re going to want to take your knife . . . ”

This was the “talent” portion of the 2008 Miss Outdoors pageant, part of an improbable Eastern Shore festival that combines the worlds of beauty contests and competitive muskrat skinning.

For years here, young women have paraded in glittery evening gowns, and then — on the same stage — skinners in camouflage hats have separated small animals from their pelts.

This year, two girls chose to do both.

Their story played out less than 60 miles from Washington, in a place where time is slowly eroding a culture built around the Chesapeake Bay’s boot-sucking marshes. These teenagers were afraid that, without their participation, both the pageant and the skinning races might decline even further.

So they sought to take on a hybrid role, one foot in their world and one in their grandparents’. In one weekend, they would be both modern princesses and old-time, blood-covered ‘rat-skinners.

” . . . You want to take your knuckles,” 17-year-old Samantha Phillips, Contestant No. 1, was saying. One of the pageant judges squinched up her face in shock. “And separate the meat from the hide, just like this.”

“Oh my God!” a boy in the audience yelled, at the sight of a woman in perfect makeup with her hand inside a muskrat.

Then, from another part of the crowd: an older woman’s voice: “She’s good.”

…

A Life-Changing Turn of Events

By Michael Wilbon
Friday, February 1, 2008; Page E01

The site of Super Bowl XLII, the gigantic steel-faced stadium that looks like a spaceship plopped down in the desert, is only a 35-minute drive west around the beltway known as the 101. The center of Super Bowl activity is a 25-minute drive south to downtown Phoenix, a quick trip past a residential oasis called Paradise Valley, past Camelback Mountain.

It’s just outside my door, really, but I can’t get there. Couldn’t get to Super Bowl media day on Tuesday. Couldn’t get to the Patriots’ and Giants’ interview sessions Wednesday or Thursday. Couldn’t mingle with former coaches and former players in the lobbies of the downtown hotels to find out what they think about the Patriots being undefeated. Can’t do any of it because I had a heart attack in the wee hours of Monday morning.

Since then it’s been no reporting, no writing, no TV, no fighting with Kornheiser, nothing to do with football or the Super Bowl. What would have been my 21st consecutive Super Bowl assignment for The Washington Post has instead included my first ambulance ride, a trip to the emergency room, angioplasty, and a dramatic lifestyle change that now calls for heart medicine, insulin injections and daily blood-pressure checks . . . or else die early.

I landed in Phoenix late Sunday night, drove to my home-away-from-D.C.-home in Scottsdale, looked at some e-mail, and went to bed at 1:30. At 3:15 a heavy pain in my left arm and on the left side of my chest woke me. I thought it was indigestion, and started drinking water, but the pain persisted. Took some Advil. The pain got worse. Tried to go back to bed, but it became unbearable. They were classic heart-attack symptoms, the pain up and down the left arm and in the upper-left chest, stuff you see on TV dramas and sitcoms. It was after 15 minutes of denial that I woke my wife and told her: “I know this sounds insane, but we’ve got to drive to the emergency room. I’m having a heart attack.”

Within six hours, after nitroglycerin pills, morphine drips and an ambulance transfer to an intensive care unit, a cardiologist to whom I will forever be indebted conducted an angioplasty, using a balloon to open a blocked artery. For the first time in my life, I was admitted to a hospital and stayed there for two more days — and found out that not only wasn’t I indestructible but that I now would be a full-fledged, insulin-dependent diabetic.

Until very recently, I’d never missed a big assignment of any kind because of illness. My father grew up plowing fields and picking cotton and bailing hay in the deep South during the Depression and his sense of work was you don’t miss — ever. If you do, it’s a sign of weakness or frailty, and he didn’t tolerate it from his two boys. And though that has overwhelmingly served us well and I believe in that work ethic wholly, the fact was this was a permissible exception, make that a mandatory exception. And I had any number of people, some friends and some professional associates and many who are both, drive that point home, that I needed to smarten up and look at life differently from here on out.

It was unimaginable to me that beyond my family members and dearest friends, so many people — many of great public stature — took the time to call or send flowers. One of the first calls was from Darrell Green, who should be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame by Saturday evening. Warren Sapp said if I didn’t change my life he’d come looking for me. I heard from my basketball buddies, Grant Hill, Charles Barkley, Reggie Miller, Mike Fratello, Rick Carlisle and Chris Mullin. Two commissioners — David Stern and Roger Goodell — called. I’ve heard multiple times from football buddies/Arizona neighbors Nick Lowery and Bertrand Berry. Byron Leftwich, whom I’ve known since he was 14, left a long, heartfelt voice mail. Howie Long sent a touching text message. Roy Green, who had a heart attack at about the same age, made himself available to talk about what comes next for me. I was startled to open the door and get a big basket of fruit from Abe and Irene Pollin and flowers from Phil Jackson and Jeannie Buss. I’m grateful for, and humbled by, each and every expression.

But two things left me speechless and of a mind to reevaluate a lot of stuff. The phone rang while I was in my hospital bed Monday night and the voice on the other end said: “This is Jeff George. I was calling to tell you I’m thinking of you and praying for you.” Yep, Jeff George. No. 3 in your program. For years and years, especially during his brief time in D.C., I was pointedly critical of George. I’m sure some of it was over the top and unnecessary. Yet he was big enough to put that aside and call with get-well wishes. He told me about his father having a heart attack when he was about my age, 49, about lifestyle changes and how families respond with support.

George sounded like an expert on the topic and on recovery. He talked and I listened.

I’ve also, in this space and on TV, been pointedly critical of Kobe Bryant. Yet, I answered the doorbell Wednesday and there were flowers and balloons from Kobe wishing me a quick return to my duties. I hope I have the grace to extend myself to someone who might offer a public rebuke of my work.

The lesson learned is probably that a bad pass on third and 12, a missed jump shot at the buzzer or even a prolonged disagreement with a teammate doesn’t make that the dominant theme of a man’s life. It’s not like I won’t make a critical observation about Kobe in the playoffs, if necessary, just that such comments ought to be expressed in context and not cavalierly used to form larger judgments about a person’s life. At the very least there ought to be an acknowledgment of a sense of compassion and humanity that aren’t to be taken for granted.

There’s also an obligation on my part to take all this support and advice and make the necessary changes that will enable me to get out of bed and be a producer again, a more responsible one who can go to work with the consistency of Cal Ripken and also understand the need for better health and a more balanced life. As Jeff George said in our conversation the other night: “This is definitely manageable. And you’ll do it. But it doesn’t mean you’re in total control. This whole thing should help you learn the difference.”