Elderly Woman Rescued After 2 Weeks in Bathtub

An 84-year-old Los Angeles woman who fell in her bathtub and was unable to move for about two weeks was rescued by police officers checking on a neighbor’s report she was missing, police said today.

The neighbor, concerned because she had not seen Aridana Lohmann at Lohmann’s Wilshire area home for two weeks, called police Thursday to check up on her, Sgt. Wayne DeBord said.

“She normally keeps a regular schedule and the neighbors were concerned because her mail was stacking up,” DeBord said. “When we got there, there was mail piled up on the porch.”

Police officers pounded on Lohmann’s door and peered through the windows but could not see the woman.

“Our guys kicked the door down and there she was,” DeBord said. “She was alive after two weeks.”

Lohmann apparently fell in the bathtub and could not pull herself out, he said.

“Her neighbors probably saved her life by calling us,” DeBord said.

Lohmann was in critical condition at Midway Hospital today, hospital officials said.

“Police had been to her house a bunch of times before” to help her after other falls, Sgt. Al Pesanti said. “Sometimes when she goes down, she can’t get up.”

Pesanti said Lohmann was weak but able to speak to officers who pulled her out of the tub.

“She told them she was injured and couldn’t get out,” he said.

Police described the woman as “heavyset” and said that might have helped her survive the ordeal. “She had water to drink in there too,” Pesanti said.

DeBord said the woman might not have survived many more days in the tub because “just the cold if nothing else” would have been too hard on her.