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PORT CHARLOTTE, FLA---For the last 25 years, he's given food to the needy by the basketful.
Now he's being starved to death.
Ted Stith, a farmer from Cincinnatus, NY, went to Florida to visit a friend but after the 73-year-old man suffered a stroke, his son put him in a hospice, ordered all food and water stopped and left him to die. The son then went back to New York to sell his father's possessions at auction---at his father's own auction house.
Ted Sr. has been admitted to the Hospice of Florida Sunwest on Veronica Way in Port Charlotte, entering his ninth day without food and water.
Ted was apparently moved to the hospice Monday from Fawcett Memorial Hospital where he'd been since his stroke 13 days ago. When he first suffered the stroke, he spent four days in the intensive care unit and after his son decided to end his father's life, Stith was moved to the hospice section of the hospital.
Kathy Vinson, one of his best friends who he visited virtually daily and with whom he spent several hours a day, flew to Florida immediately upon hearing of Ted's stroke. She says he's responsive, alert, cognitive and was improving but when she raised the issue of his right and will to live, doctors said Ted's responses were only reflexes and then they barred Kathy from seeing him.
Now, with the hours of Ted's life slowing ticking away, Kathy won't be able to say goodbye to her friend. She been denied admittance to the hospice.
Teddy Jr. was his father's favorite of his five children, Kathy said. She said that Ted Sr. was at her house everyday. She said he saw his son maybe three times a week and his sister, once or twice a week. It was Teddy Jr. who decided that his father should die. He and his brother sold his father's possessions at his father's auction barn Sunday and it's already been announced that in three weeks, another auction will be held to pay for his father's flight home from Florida for his funeral.
Ted Sr. was a farmer and owned a modest auction barn where he held auctions every week, selling livestock and all kinds of goods.
"He had a food auction once a month", Kathy says. "Anyone who didn't have money for food, he would give them food, boxes of food. Here's a man who gave way food for the last 25 years and he's being starved to death".
Cincinnatus is a small farming community in the Finger Lakes region of New York State, east of Cortland. First settled by New Englandeers, it has a population of approximately 1,200 people. It's the birthplace of Elmer Sperry, the inventor of the gyroscopic compass and founder of Sperry-Rand Corporation, now UNISYS.
This past Sunday, as one of his sons was auctioning off his father's belongings, telling the group assembled that his father was brain dead, several of Ted's friends approached the gathering with a flyer that they had drawn up with news of Ted's plight, asking for help in saving Ted's life.
Ted Stith is well-known in the Cincinnatus community, a kind and generous man. "Ted's helped a lot of people", his friends told the gathering, "now it's time for us to help Ted".
Spectators said that Ted's son continued with the auction, apparently trying to drown out his father's supporters who were protesting that selling his possessions before he has passed away was dishonorable.
Kathy said that about four days into Ted's hospice stay, after his son had taken his wallet and clothes and flown back to New York, she called Teddy Jr. and asked him to return to Florida.
"I told him, Teddy, you've got to come down. Your father is trying to get out of his bed, he wants to go home, he's sucking the swab on his own, he's really doing good and he wouldn't even call me back. He says, I'm in a meeting, I'll call you back and he never did".
When The North Country Gazette contacted Ted Jr. Monday night in Cincinnatus to ask him about his father's responsiveness and his decision to pull his father's feeding tube, he refused to discuss it, yelling "it's none of your damn business, lady", and slammed down the phone.
She says that before she was banned, she had an opportunity to take a dog into Ted's room."I took the dog over to the side of his bed and Ted reached over and laid his hand on the dog's head. He looked up at me and that was really the first time he got tears in his eyes. I know he was thinking of my dog and his own dog. It was sad".
Before Kathy was barred from visiting Ted because the patient advocate said that pudding containers and drink bottles had been found in Ted's room, she had stayed with Ted virtually 24-7.
She asked him point blank if he wanted to live. "His eyes got big" she says.
"I said if you want to live, squeeze my hand one time, and he did. The patient advocate, Martina who witnessed it claimed there was no response, that it was only a reflex".
"He's saying he wants water, he reaches for water, it's his own right to have water. If there was a dog in the yard reaching for the water bowl, I wouldn't deny a dog water, and he shouldn't be denied. He has a right to live".
"Who are these doctors to make this kind of a decision?" Kathy questions. She says that the doctors never gave Ted a chance to recover, instead "throwing him" away, telling Ted Jr. that his father should be placed in a hospice because he had no chance of recovery, would never swallow or talk.
"I questioned it", Kathy said. "I don't understand how something like that can be done so quickly. I said if he's not getting any worse, why can't we wait?" But the doctor wasn't to be swayed, even when Ted's responsiveness was demonstrated to her.
"The man was responding", Vinson says, "it's baby steps but he was responding. He would take my hand if I told him to, he was responsive to commands. They allow you a swab to wipe the lips off--he would take it from my hand, put it in his mouth and suck for all he was worth. He could raise his hands, raise his legs, hold his leg up on command. At one point, someone told him to pick up his right arm which he can't do so he took his left arm over and picked up his right".
Kathy said she's showed Ted's sister how he responds to commands, to no avail. On Monday, when Ted was apparently moved from the hospital to the hospice, it was done secretively. Kathy was not notified by any family member although the sister is still in Port Charlotte and aware of Kathy's presence. Upon calling the hospital, she was told only that Ted had been discharged but she didn't know if he was dead or alive. She learned Tuesday that he had been relocated to the Tidwell Hospice and Palliative Care of the Hospice of Florida Sunwest and was reportedly still alive as of Tuesday evening.
Florida's Department of Children and Families (DCF), statutorily charged with protecting vulnerable adults, has refused to intervene in the matter. Because Kathy is not a family member or caregiver, she doesn't meet the "criteria", according to David Caldwell, DCF spokesman. While he said that he can't discuss individual cases, he said that it appears that whatever DCF employee that answered the abuse hotline call made by Kathy, that the information given regarding Ted's case did not meet the criteria for DCF to become involved. He said that because Ted is in a "protected" environment, despite the concerted effort to kill him, that he is not a vulnerable adult pursuant to Section 415 of Florida Statutes and therefore, DCF will not intervene.
The clock continues to tick. Time's running out for Ted Stith
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/013006PlayingGod.html
June Maxam 1-31-06
© 2005 North
Country Gazette
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