Woman Sat on Toilet Seat for Two Years

A Ness City, Kansas woman is being treated at a local hospital after apparently sitting on her boyfriend’s toilet so long that she became stuck to it.

Woman Sat on Toilet Seat for Two Years

There were many newsworthy items to report this week: the Democratic nomination race fiasco; Eliot Spitzer’s resignation over a call-girl scandal; the mortgage market’s attempts to save people’s homes.

But one story seems to have captured the nation’s attention more than any otherthe case of the woman who would not, and then could not, come out of the bathroom. Ever. She supposedly sat on the toilet so long that her body became stuck to the toilet seat, "by natural means," according to the sheriff’s report.

"She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body," said Ness County sheriff Bryan Whipple to reporters. "It is hard to imagine, I still have a hard time imagining it myself."

Pam Babcock, a 35-year-old woman living with her boyfriend in Ness City, Kansas, had apparently refused to come out of the bathroom one day…two years ago.

The woman’s boyfriend, Kory McFarren, 36, told television reporters that he had tried repeatedly to get Pam to come out of the bathroom, but that she’d developed a phobia about coming out, fearing that she might run into relatives who had abused her as a child.

McFarren told reporters, "It just kind of happened one day. She went in and had been in there a little while, the next time it was a little longer. Then she got it in her head she was going to stay - like it was a safe place for her."

He brought her food and water, and insists that she bathed and changed her clothes in the bathroom. He claims they had "a normal relationship." You know, except for the part where she was stuck to the toilet seat and lived in his bathroom for two years.

As to how she became literally stuck to the toilet, some reports claim that her skin had simply grown around the seat. However, medical experts say that this is unlikely, and the cause was more likely that the open sores on her legs -caused by sitting on the toilet for so long - had adhered to the toilet seat.

Ness County sheriff Bryan Whipple told reporters that there will be a full investigation into whether Babcock really sat willingly on a toilet seat for two years, or whether McFarren may face charges. So far, says Whipple, her actions appear to support McFarren’s statements.

McFarren says he regrets not calling police earlier, and doesn’t really know why he didn’t.

"She is an adult; she made her own decision. It was my fault I should have gotten help for her sooner. I admit that," he said.

He finally placed the call when Babcock seemed weak and disoriented. When she was found by police, she had severe atrophy in her leg muscles and an advanced infection which damaged nerves in her legs. The seat was pried from the toilet, attached to her skin, so that she could be transported by ambulance to a hospital.

Said sheriff Whipple, "We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital…The hospital removed it."

The level of atrophy had so deteriorated her leg muscles and the infection was so advanced that doctors told police that Babcock may need to be in a wheelchair.

McFarren says that he just kept expecting her to leave the bathroom one day. He says he asked her every day to leave, and her reply was always, "Maybe tomorrow."

McFarren told reporters, "After a while, you kind of get used to it."