Posted on 04/13/2012 5:40:51 PM PDT by DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis
Firefighters are using forklift trucks to rescue obese people after crews injured their backs trying to move them.
Five firemen from a single Yorkshire town have injured their backs and muscles while trying to manoeuvre overweight people in the past two years, a report found. It resulted in a total of 13 working days being lost as the injured officers recovered.
Now crews in Rotherham, one of Britain's fattest towns, are using forklift trucks and hydrolic platforms to rescue fat people from fires and falls and to help the ambulance service move bariatric patients to hospital.
A report commissioned by Rotherham council found overweight people at putting their lives at risk and diverting fire crews from attending more pressing 999 calls.
It noted: "South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue crews have had a number of firefighters injured while carrying out such rescues, usually muscular skeletal injuries , including back and muscle strains.
"As with any emergency situation, the risk for injury to staff is minimised but the rescue of people in these circumstances tends to be problematic due to the limited space in traditional houses, especially hallways and stairs."
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
just like our mildly obese and moderately obese are larger....
we've as a society ratched up all our weights to what we have now...
as far as morbidly obese now, the healthcare system keeps them alive...that's why there seems to be so many of them....
what used to kill them early, now they can survive...
Not at all bustin' on Wally's, just that it's about the densest grouping of people around here on any given day.
It doesn't seem like 'schadenfreude' per se .. but perhaps a second cousin ?
Doesn't help with the creaking joints, but does make 6'/195 feel tolerable for awhile. ;-)
I had a roomie that was an EMT and she said that moving “obese” people was like trying to grab a bowl of jello with chopsticks. I just can’t imagine the smell of a person that can’t bath or get up to use the can and only eats.
foodstamps, welfare, disability payments for starters..
Food stamps.
We have the fattest poor people in the world.
When I was in Ems the fat trend was starting. But once me and another emit carried a fatty from the attic of his three story house on a stairchair on narrow stairway and all the way to the truck. Thought my guts was going to jack in the box all over the house.
go figure...
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