Carol Vincent was in her forties when she died.
Carol Vincent died alone in her tiny studio flat in London.
Carol Vincent died a few weeks before Christmas; November 2003 to be exact.
It took more than two years for someone to realise Carol Vincent was dead.
Two years. She lay there. Alone, dead, unnoticed, and unmissed.
As I read the story I kept asking, how?
How is it possible that in a city of about 7 million, not one person noticed that a neighbour, sister, cousin or friend was missing?
How could the family members, “who told the inquest that Carol Vincent had been helped to find the property by a women’s refuge because she had reported that she was a victim of domestic violence,â€? live for two years without communicating with her?
How could the women’s refuge place her in accommodation where drug addicts frequented and alcoholics lay dead in the lift?
How could the same refuge fail to check up on Carol Vincent?
How could Carol Vincent’s television have stayed on for two years despite unpaid electricity bills?
How could pest control, who turned up to fumigate a neighbours house of insects which were clearly creeping in from Carol Vincent’s home not notice anything suspicious?
How can the answers to any of these questions make it any easier to accept that in spite of advancements in technology that allow us to communicate faster, easier and over longer distances so many people are living and dying alone, unnoticed and unmissed?
oh. my. goodness.
That ranks among the most depressing things i have ever read.
It’s hard to get my mind around.
First order of business. Call home. Is everyone fine? Good. Done.
Next, no more groaning inwardly when the neighbours want to engage me in chitchatter on the stairway and all I want to do is get home and deflate.
And, no more pulling ‘independent woman’ attitude when the friends want me to text them or call them when I get home after a late evening in their company.
I choose the ‘nuisance’ attached to human connection over this. Any time.
oh. my. goodness.
that is the kind of stuff that makes me afraid to live far away from home. it is way too easy to be forgotten. but two years? my goodness
its unbelievable that no one missed her in all those years!
this is britain!
omg… a sad reflection of the me-first culture that we live in today.
I am actually very glad I have nosy neighbors, relatives and friends after reading the story. Though the how’s you have outlined are still without answers.
I was shocked when I read about this woman. In a way, we (society, I mean) are to blame for what happened to her. We are to blame when we don’t knock on the door of the neighbour we have not seen for a while. We are to blame when we don’t keep in touch with family members.