Politics
Woman Nearly Poisoned To Death By People She Trusted Most, Somehow Still Being Gaslit
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
COLUMBIA, S.C.: Hannah Pettey was, by every outward measure, a young woman who had simply been having a very bad year.
She was tired. She was nauseated. Her hair was falling out in patches. Her hands trembled at breakfast. She lost twenty-two pounds without trying. At a certain point she could not stand up long enough to do the dishes, which, sources close to the investigation note, was considered by at least one person in the household to be a personal failing.
Nobody called a doctor. They called it anxiety.
"She was always a sensitive girl," said a family acquaintance who asked not to be named but volunteered this information unprompted in a Kroger parking lot. "Very emotional. You know the type."
The type, as it turns out, was being poisoned.
Toxicology reports obtained by 48 Hours correspondent Anne-Marie Green revealed elevated levels of a substance that does not occur naturally in the human body at the concentrations found in Hannah Pettey's bloodstream, unless one is either working in a very specific industrial setting or eating something one has not prepared oneself.
Hannah had not been cooking her own meals. She had not been allowed to, because the two people investigators are now focused on had insisted, warmly and repeatedly, that they wanted to take care of her.
Detectives describe the situation as "an ongoing inquiry into a complex relational dynamic," which is the official law enforcement way of saying something too bleak to say plainly at a Tuesday afternoon press conference.
"We are committed to a thorough and complete examination of all relevant facts as they pertain to the physical circumstances surrounding Ms. Pettey's hospitalization," said a spokesperson, reading from a prepared statement with the practiced stillness of a man who has long since made peace with the gap between language and meaning.
Hannah, speaking publicly for the first time, said she had gone to the emergency room only after collapsing at a gas station, and that even then, in the ambulance, she had apologized to the paramedics for being a burden.
"I thought I was being dramatic," she said. "They kept telling me I was being dramatic. I got very good at agreeing with them."
This is the part of the story that 48 Hours spends forty-seven minutes building toward, and it is also the part that is somehow the least surprising to every woman watching it.
Forum threads and comment sections filled within hours of the broadcast. Women typed things like "I felt this in my chest" and "I knew where this was going from the first thirty seconds" and "Why do we always apologize in the ambulance." These comments received thousands of likes. Nobody found this response unusual.
The two individuals at the center of the investigation have not been charged. They have, however, retained attorneys, given separate interviews to local news affiliates in which they described themselves as devastated, and started a prayer circle.
The prayer circle has seventeen members.
Hannah is currently staying with a friend. She is cooking her own meals. Her hair is growing back.
She still apologizes when she takes too long to answer a text.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.cbsnews.com/video/the-gaslighting-of-hannah-pettey-1/