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"I did not consider it a ridiculous story, only tragic.

Wow. You believed that a man, however large, fell only six inches at two miles per hour and "busted open like a ripe watermelon and his guts spilled out". That IS tragic.

Ridiculous too.

Perhaps you have no knowledge of the dangers of morbid obesity.

Not only do I have knowledge of the dangers of morbid obesity, but I also have knowledge of basic anatomy. HINT: falling six inches very slowly onto a flat surface will not cause a human body to become "busted open like a ripe watermelon and his guts spilled out".

I had an uncle myself who weighed over 500 pounds at one time. I am sure if he had taken any kind of a fall at all it would have been disastrous.

I'm sure it would have been. He could have broken a leg or even his pelvis, at that weight. He could have damaged his internal organs. But unless he were falling from a very great height and/or at a great speed, he would most certainly have not "busted open like a ripe watermelon and his guts spilled out".

I didn't mean to give you the impression that the man fell six inches. He would have been standing up on that surface that was only six inches off the ground. Picture a rather tall individual, grossly overweight, pitching forward on to his belly on a hard roadbed. It would be similiar to a very fat man falling off a slow moving skateboard. I have no problem believing his belly could have burst open. At any rate I am sorry I started this. I was merely trying to illustrate that it seems to me to be a very simple matter as to why an obese person would be more likely to suffer catastrophic injury than a person of normal weight.