Chamblee54

A recent post included the phrase “getting severely overweight dead people out of an apartment building.” Those are googling words. Most of the results are hand wringing about the number of overweight people. A couple of the results were worth  clicking out.
The headline result is from Merry Olde England, which is becoming known as the fattest country in Europe. Fire service called in 50 times to winch fat people out.
“Paramedics in the West Midlands have had to call on their heavy-lifting emergency service colleagues, despite having extra equipment to help move extremely heavy patients themselves. Over a three-year period they called in West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service on 50 occasions, so the patients could be winched out with apparatus designed for lifting car wrecks. Sometimes morbidly obese patients, … can only be extracted from their homes after a window is taken out, say firefighters.
… Nick Harrison, chairman of the West Midlands Fire Brigades Union, said: “In most cases these people are quite elderly and are suffering from serious medical issues which have left them bedridden for a long time, and they have put on a lot of weight. “Many times we have to remove the whole window frame and get them out that way. It’s a lot safer both for them and for the rescuers.”
… Official statistics show the West Midlands to be the fattest region in Britain, which is itself the fattest major country in Europe. According to the Association of Public Health Observatories, about 25 per cent of adults in Britain are now clinically obese. In the West Midlands, the figure is 29 per cent. By comparison, across the European Union as a whole it is just 14 per cent. “
One of the commenters had a constructive suggestion: “The ‘feeders’ should be brought to court and punished. For every obese person there is one or more ‘feeders’, who shop, supply the food, help the person eat it etc. Being a ‘feeder’ should be a criminal offense.”
This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.