This is messed up..



http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapc....ap/index.html


Folole Muliaga, 44, of New Zealand, needed an electric oxygen pump to breathe
• She died two hours after energy company cut power because of unpaid bill
• Schoolteacher with four children ill, fell behind in payments
• Police investigating Mercury Energy; manager says company devastated
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- A 44-year-old woman who needed an electric oxygen pump to breathe died after an energy company cut the power to her home because of a $122 unpaid bill, her family claimed Wednesday.

Police said they had launched an investigation into Folole Muliaga's death, which happened within two hours of state-owned company Mercury Energy cutting power to her house Tuesday.

Mercury Energy's general manager, James Moulder, said the company was devastated by the woman's death and was conducting its own investigation to determine what happened.

Muliaga, a schoolteacher with four children between the ages of 5 and 20, had been off work since February with an illness and had fallen behind in her payments to Mercury, said Brenden Sheehan, a relative who provided a copy of the bill.

Relative says family warned company rep she needed machine
Six days before a Mercury Energy representative arrived Tuesday at the house to disconnect the electricity, she was $122 in arrears.

Sheehan said both Muliaga and her son told the technician she was dependent on the oxygen machine to stay alive and invited him into the house to see it. "Then he cut the power off," Sheehan told The Associated Press.
Muliaga began having difficulty breathing, became faint and then collapsed, he said. Paramedics were unable to revive her, and she was pronounced dead within two hours of the power being cut.