Fire officials: 93-year-old was stuck on toilet for days

An elderly woman was rescued from her own toilet at a senior citizen apartment building this morning after being stuck there for days, according to a fire department supervisor.

The 93-year-old woman, who was not identified, is a resident of Tioga Presbyterian Apartments on Tioga Street near 15th, an independent-living facility for senior citizens that's funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to Dan Magee, spokesman for Presby's Inspired Life, a nonprofit developer of affordable housing for seniors which operates the building.

Magee said the woman was last seen by another resident on Sunday. This morning, her representative at the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging called the building's service coordinator after she was unable to contact the woman for a scheduled phone call. Both the representative and the coordinator went to her apartment, where they found the woman sitting on the toilet.  Magee said she appeared to be asleep but had not fallen off.

Around 10:54 a.m., firefighters were called to rescue her. The woman told firefighters she had been stuck on the toilet for two or three days, the fire department supervisor said.

Each apartment in the building is equipped with a long emergency cord in the bedroom and bathroom that rings to a 24-hour security guard, Magee said. The woman never pulled the cord, which was well within her reach from the toilet, Magee said. The cord was checked and found to be operational, he said.

The fire department supervisor said after the woman was extricated from the toilet she was taken to Temple University Hospital, where she is now listed in stable condition.