Corrine Damm Gladwin, Michigan woman calls cops to confess having briefly turned off her mother’s life support cause she could no longer see her in pain.
A Michigan woman was taken into custody earlier this month after calling cops to confess turning off her mother’s life support cause she could no longer see her mother in pain.
Corinne J. Damm, 59, called cops in Gladwin on Feb. 1 to say that she’d cut tubing attached to her mother’s ventilator and turned the apparatus off while visiting her at Gladwin Pines Nursing & Rehabilitation, according to a police report obtained by MLive.com.
Her mother lived but Damm, who was ‘very distraught,’ told police she could no longer watch her 78-year-old mom endure ‘all the pain.’
A nurse at the nursing home turned the breathing machine back on some 60 seconds after it was switched it off, keeping the elderly patient alive, cops said.
Damm allegedly told officers that she had also cut the tubes attached to her mother’s life support system using a pair of scissors that were in the room as ‘she figured it wouldn’t be like killing her because she keeps breathing’ when not on a ventilator at home, Mlive.com reported.
During police questioning, Damm said that her mother had been living at home until March 2019, when she started having unspecified medical issues that required stays at various facilities.
‘Corinne advised her mother said she can’t do this anymore and that she wanted to die,’ Damm said, according to police. ‘Corinne advised it wasn’t like she was trying to plan a mercy killing, she just could not watch her mother in all the pain.’
Damm, who initially was charged with attempted murder, pleaded no contest earlier this week to a lesser charge of vulnerable adult abuse, a court official told WPBN-TV.
Damm has since been released from Gladwin County Jail after posting a $100,000 personal recognizance bond. The daughter is set to be sentenced March 23.
