FAYETTEVILLE — The sister and daughter of an 85-year-old woman were arrested Monday after authorities found her unresponsive and covered in feces and trash at their home on Green Acres Road, according to a preliminary arrest report.
Rose Mary Austin, 75, and Evelyn Schafer, 54, of 2141 N. Green Acres Road were arrested in connection with abuse of an impaired person, according to the report.
The victim was not identified in the report. Austin is listed as her sister and Schafer as her daughter.
The fire department was called to the home about 11:42 p.m. Sunday for concerns about the woman’s breathing, the report stated. After arriving, firefighters struggled to get inside because stacks of newspapers and magazines blocked the door of the home, according to the report. Once inside, they found the woman on a couch, wearing only a shirt and covered almost completely in feces and barely breathing, the report said.
Staff at Washington Regional Medical Center found that the woman's socks were stuck to her feet due to severe swelling from the feces and urine contacting her skin, according to the report. Live maggots were found inside deep lacerations on her legs, staff said.
She also had pressure wounds to her back and side that had newspaper stuck to them. Wounds to her ankle and knee were so deep the bone was exposed, according to the report.
Police, firefighters and medical center staff all described the injuries as the worst they had seen, the report stated.
Sgt. Craig Stout, spokesman for Fayetteville police, said the department handles only one or two cases of neglect per year.
“(It) doesn’t happen very often,” Stout said. “I saw the pictures and it was bad.”
Austin, described in the report as the woman's caregiver, told police the woman fell June 13 and was placed on the couch, according to the report.
The woman was at Washington Regional Medical Center on Monday and breathing from a ventilator, the report said. Medical staff said she may never regain the ability to breath on her own, according to the report.
Austin and Schafer were being held Monday afternoon at the Washington County Detention Center waiting to be booked, according to Kelly Cantrell, spokesman for the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.