re: "Ben Bilemy" Deceased Hiker Might Have Ties to New York and Louisiana

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What else other than a stroke incapacitating him could cause him to just lie there and starve to death? Would a stroke show up in an autopsy quite a while past death?

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I don’t think it necessarily has to be a stroke. I’m sure we’ve all been sick to the point where we didn’t have the strength to get out of bed. Generally though, we have someone there bringing us food and meds and watching out for us, and in the event our condition worsens, they take us to the doctor. If the guy caught a nasty bug out of the trail that put him down, then it’s possible that with no one else there caring for him his condition worsened from lack of nourishment and dehydration. It would only take a day or two of that to render him incapable of seeking help. So it’s not the result of one big thing like a stroke but more a culmination of events.