Woman, 84, Rescued After Lying Helpless in Tub for Days

An 84-year-old opera buff and world traveler described by her neighbors as “anything but frail” was in critical condition Friday after a spending as long as six days trapped in her bathtub.

Ariadne Lohmann, who has lived in the same neatly kept green house on Sycamore Avenue for more than 20 years, was rescued Thursday night by police who broke into her home and found her in an extremely weak state, lying on her side in the dry bathtub.

Lohmann, a Russian immigrant and widow whose only relative is a cousin in San Francisco, was undergoing tests at Midway Hospital to determine what caused her collapse, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Police said Lohmann is a large woman and may have survived nearly a week without food in part because of her size. The woman apparently collapsed sometime last weekend.

Wilshire Division Police Sgt. Len Hundshamer said Lohmann may not have been able to cry for help or get herself out of the tub because of a possible stroke. Neighbors said she had medication for high blood pressure, but sometimes neglected to take it.

No One Heard Any Cries

“The doctors are still testing right now, but a stroke that affects speech is one plausible answer for why nobody heard any cries,” Hundshamer said.

Authorities credited Joan Barr, a neighbor who lives two doors away, with saving Lohmann’s life. Barr called police Thursday night after learning that the mail on Lohmann’s porch had gone uncollected for days.

Neighbors, in turn, praised a local mail carrier who had warned them earlier Thursday that mail was piling up and that a radio was constantly playing opera music inside Lohmann’s locked house.

“After the mail lady talked to us, we tried to find the man who usually feeds Mrs. Lohmann’s cats when she’s out of town, but he wasn’t around,” said next-door neighbor Maria Maldonado. “We knocked on her door, but she wasn’t there. Then Mrs. Barr said she was calling the police. Thank goodness she did.”

Louise Crittendon, who lives in an apartment south of Lohmann’s home, said that when paramedics gingerly moved the woman to a waiting ambulance Thursday night, “she was making moans and groans, the poor lady. It’s a real frightening thing that she went through.”

Neighbors, piecing together the events of the past week, said a network of nearby friends who normally watch Lohmann’s home and regularly chat with her never dreamed that the independent older woman--who often journeys to Santa Barbara and last year went to Europe--was in trouble.

From their yards and porches, none could see the mail piling up inside Lohmann’s enclosed patio, which is hidden behind a large bush.

“We keep trying to get her to trim that bush so we can see across to her house and be sure nobody’s trying to break in,” said Derrein Pace, a neighbor across the street. “We never thought it would be something like this.”

Louis Touchard, 67, a longtime friend of Lohmann’s who lives down the block and cared for her cats for a month last year, said he normally sees her every week if she is not visiting her best friend in Santa Barbara or spending a few days in Palm Springs.

But in the last few weeks, Touchard did not visit her as usual because he had been assigned an overnight shift at his job.

In addition, he said, nothing seemed amiss.

Touchard said Lohmann is so active that when the days passed and he did not see her door ajar--as she normally leaves it when she’s home--”I just assumed she was up in Santa Barbara. . . . But she must have been lying there, unable to get anybody’s attention.”