This 1997 News Article well illustrates that "Jehovah's Earthly Organization" has neither the will nor established procedure to assist JWs that genuinely need help beyond what they could ever repay to the Borg, either $$$$ or in human capital.
People who are no longer an asset to the Borg are forgotten and abandoned.
As a JW you are worth only as much as your last AND next FS Report.
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Yun Ja Kim's story
By Mike Stobbe
Times-Union staff writer
GAINESVILLE - Yun Ja Kim didn't have much. She had few clothes and little furniture. She had no job, no money and was behind on the rent. What little she had was consumed in a fire Nov. 11 inside her small apartment in Jacksonville. The blaze also consumed her mobility and her independence.
It burned over 95 percent of her skin and all of her hair. Her ears were so cooked, a doctor cut away all but the lower right lobe. Her legs were so charred, doctors amputated them below the knees.
But through 15 operations and five months of intensive care at Shands Hospital in Gainesville, she survived and has recovered enough to begin years of physical rehabilitation and plastic surgery.
Yun Ja Kim.
That, however, is just the beginning of her problems.
Kim, 44, has no place to go, no family in the United States. She has no way to pay her $1 million medical bill. She has no health insurance and hasn't qualified for government aid.
And she has no will to live. She says she planned the fire to kill herself and has asked hospital workers to help her die. Frances Wack, a Shands social worker who has handled burn cases for 10 years, said she's never had a case as frustrating, mysterious and troubling.
"It's been a nightmare," she said.
Kim has given various accounts of how she was burned, and investigators reached different conclusions.
Kim lived in a first-floor apartment in Villager Apartments North, 5824 Justina Court in Arlington.
On Nov. 11, apartment manager Gary Mann heard a smoke detector and saw smoke pour from the door of Kim's apartment. The door was ajar, but a chain lock kept it from fully opening. Mann and another man kicked the door in and found Kim slumped against a wall, naked and burned. Fire was consuming the back half of her 700-square-foot apartment.
A Jacksonville fire investigator concluded the blaze started in a storage shed and spread into the apartment through a back bedroom window. But Ted Nixon, an investigator hired by State Farm Insurance, concluded it started inside the apartment.
"This fire was the result of a human act," Nixon reported to State Farm.
A red plastic gasoline can found in the kitchen, Mann noted. "She had no car. She didn't drive," Mann said. "Why did she need the gas?"
Jacksonville police Detective Jim Parker reviewed fire department and insurance investigator's reports and concluded officials can't say for sure how the fire started. "I'd go with what she told you," he said.
Kim's account
Last week, as she lay in her hospital bed, Kim gave this account of the fire:
Kim was depressed because of her income and job problems and another reason that she wouldn't reveal. Intending to kill herself, she took a can of gasoline to the kitchen and poured the fuel onto her T-shirt. She also soaked a washcloth with gasoline and left it on the floor.
She took a cigarette lighter, flicked it and held out the flame. And in that moment of hesitation, she chose not to set herself on fire.
But somehow she ignited the wash cloth. She thought of running but didn't want the fire to spread. She moved to stomp it out and fire.
She tore off her clothes and extinguished the flames burning her. But the fire spread in the apartment.
She lay on her couch to die. But again, she worried about the rest of the building and she stumbled toward the door, where Mann found her.
Kim went directly to Shands. For three months, she was never more than semi-conscious because of medicine and severe illness. A breathing tube prevented her from talking.
Kim's injuries left her prey to infection, said David Mozingo, the doctor who runs the burn unit. "She had pneumonia several times and other infections. . . . There was one point where we didn't think she would make it."
It was, Mozingo said, among the worst burn cases he has seen in his seven years of burn care experience.
After a month of healing, only the skin on her scalp and lower back was healthy. Mozingo removed skin from those areas for grafts on her chest and abdomen, while cadaver skin was used to temporarily patch her arms and other areas. When the scalp and back healed, he again took grafts to redo the arms and other areas.
In late March, Kim regained full consciousness and was removed from the ventilator.
She has continued to improve, though last week her wounds still were striking. Her chin and other spots on her face were pink from a second-degree burn. The rest of her was bandaged. She was weak and couldn't lift her arms because scarring had pulled them taut.
But she could talk and even offered a slight smile, though she made it clear she is devastated by her appearance and would allow no photographs.
Mozingo said Kim is well enough to be moved to an intensive rehabilitation care center or nursing home.
Wack said such a facility would want to know her that bills would be paid, that she could get a wheelchair and prostheses and that she would have a place to go after her stay.
A troubled past
Kim's past could hold the key to finding her help.
Shands staff know she is from South Korea and came to the United States in the mid-1980s. She married a Georgia man, Karl Nickerson, who was in the military. They divorced in 1989.
The divorce was traumatic for her, said a friend, Eloise Taylor of Jessup, Ga. Kim couldn't speak English and had been emotionally and financially dependent on her husband.
Kim lived in a series of U.S. cities before coming to Jacksonville a few years ago.
Police records show she was arrested in November 1995, at the Colony Apartments on Merrill Road in Arlington. According to a report, she broke her apartment window, then started screaming when an officer questioned her. She cursed and kicked at police, and was arrested on charges of disorderly intoxication and resisting an officer.
Court records show she pleaded guilty to the first charge and was sentenced to two days in jail. The second charge was dropped.
She became homeless after the arrest and for a time was enrolled in a private, not-for-profit program called LINK, which helps mentally ill homeless people. In February 1996, LINK placed her in the Williams Boarding Home in Springfield, said Annette Williams, the facility's owner.
A doctor concluded Kim had major depression with psychotic features, Williams said. She was on medication and was prone to spells of paranoia and angry solitude, Williams said.
In April, Williams helped Kim get a job at Iceman clothing store near Regency Square mall. By May 1, Kim had moved from the boarding home into the apartment on Justina Court and was looking for used furniture.
"She was established with money coming in," Williams said.
Kim was a good worker, said Iceman manager Howard Teitelbaum.
She showed up to work as timely as the public bus system allowed. She kept to herself and at times seemed angry and depressed. Her limited English left her co-workers baffled about her problems, Teitelbaum said.
She seemed to get intensely annoyed by the clerks' tendency to wear a lot of perfume. Once, she became so irate with one clerk that she grabbed a pair of scissors and held them like she would stab the woman, said Teitelbaum, who broke them up.
Kim quit in September without saying what she would do next, he said. In early November, Kim told Mann she only had $150 of the $300 rent and would need a few weeks to come up with the balance.
Then came the fire.
Finding help
It has been hard to find anyone to help Kim, Wack said. Her brother, Jong Keun Kim, was difficult to reach because of a 13-hour time difference in South Korea and the need for an interpreter. In late November, after learning of his sister's injuries, he visited, Wack said.
He gave family consent for Kim's medical treatment and indicated the family would support the decision to put her in a nursing home if she recovered. Then he returned to his country and has not called to check on her, Wack said.
Wack said there is a rift between Kim and other family members, due at least partly to Kim's having become a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Kim said there are other issues but did not elaborate.
Hospital staff said they think the family does not have the money to help her. Kim said she doesn't want her family's help and does not want to return to South Korea.
"Nobody can understand me . . . and now I've become like this," Kim said.
Wack said she's made hundreds of calls, trying to find friends and family members who can help Kim or provide information about health benefits. Many calls have not been returned.
"This happens with a lot of people. Everyone's concerned in the beginning. But when the reality sets in about the person's still alive and how much care they're going to need, then you can't find people," Wack said.
Wack knows Kim has a Social Security number, which she apparently obtained when she was married. She thinks Kim might be entitled to some public benefits. Kim said she had a green card but lost it last year.
Also challenging is a patient who at times says she does not want to live.
"The hardest thing is trying to respect her wishes and what she wants to do," Wack said.
"She is still very depressed. When I asked her, 'Where would you want to go when you leave the hospital,' she said 'In the ground.'
"I'm just desperate for someone to help her."
Her friend Eloise Taylor has expressed a willingness to help. Taylor, 43, knew Kim when they were both going through divorces in Hinesville. Taylor also is a Jehovah's Witness and they studied the Bible together.
Taylor, a certified nurse's assistant, visited Kim Saturday and invited her to move in. Taylor said she can care for Kim but can't afford the Shands bill or future major medical bills. Taylor's niece, an Atlanta immigration attorney, came with her to track down Kim's green card and look into government aid.
Kim and Shands staff were weighing Taylor's offer yesterday.
Kim said she knows Taylor loves her, but added, "I don't want to be a burden."
Taylor said it's OK. "The door is open, if she's ready to come."