Home Health Weight per minute: Firefighters must remove six morbidly obese Britons from their homes a DAY

Weight per minute: Firefighters must remove six morbidly obese Britons from their homes a DAY

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Jason Holton, Britain's fattest man, was housebound for eight years and died in May 2024

Firefighters rescue six morbidly obese people every day, according to alarming data.

Laying bare the dire reality of the UK’s obesity crisis, shocking figures show firefighters attended 2,194 “bariatric care” incidents last year.

This figure is five times higher than a decade ago, reflecting how the country’s waistline has bulged enormously.

Rescuers have had to drag overweight patients out of their apartments. Sometimes it is necessary to remove walls, windows and railings to get them out.

Tam Fry, chair of the National Obesity Forum, told MailOnline: “Tragically, someone will die in a fire because a team is dedicated to rescuing someone else.”

“It is an inescapable fact that fire crews will have to be relied upon for this assistance for many years to come as the NHS is not in a position to offer it.”

He added: “Even when the government finally decides to tackle obesity, thousands more will still need to be taken from their homes on life-saving missions.”

Ambulance crews often call firefighters if patients in need of help become trapped by their mass.

Typically, these will be in emergency or health-related situations.

Any instance in which firefighters assist due to a patient’s weight is counted in the data, regardless of how they do so.

In October 2020, Jason Holton, then Britain’s fattest man, had to be lifted from his third-floor apartment with a crane in a seven-hour operation involving 30 firefighters.

Man number 47, from Camberley, Surrey, lived on doner meat, chips and chicken chow mein washed down with 1.5 liters of orange juice and five cans of Diet Coke.

Mr. Holton, confined to his home, died at age 33 in May of this year.

Bariatric care figures, compiled by the Home Office, show that calls reached an all-time high in 2022/23 (2,342).

Despite the slight decline in 2023/24, it was still the second worst year on record.

In 2012/13 only 429 incidents were recorded.

A spokesperson for the National Fire Chiefs Council said: “There is a long-standing commitment to fire and rescue services working with other emergency services, such as police and ambulance services, to provide public support where we can be beneficial, including with the rescue of vulnerable people.

‘The need for fire and rescue service support across a wide range of rescue incidents is increasing, and helping bariatric victims is just one element of that and it is right that we are helping vulnerable people.

“Our firefighters are well trained, well equipped and fully committed to working professionally and collaboratively with blue light partners as part of our statutory role.”

The firefighters spent In total, more than 20,000 hours rescuing severely obese people, with some individual incidents lasting up to four hours.

Jason Holton, Britain’s fattest man, was housebound for eight years and died in May 2024

Britain's fattest man, James Holton, had to be lifted from his third-floor apartment with a crane and 30 firefighters in a seven-hour operation in October 2020.

Britain’s fattest man, James Holton, had to be lifted from his third-floor apartment with a crane and 30 firefighters in a seven-hour operation in October 2020.

MailOnline analysis suggests the efforts cost around £330,000 in wages, with an average hourly wage of around £16.50.

This estimate only reflects salaries paid to firefighters, ignoring additional costs such as transportation.

An incident in Durham required the assistance of more than 30 firefighters and more than ten fire trucks to free a morbidly obese person.

Across England, 888 ‘bariatric assists’ took more than an hour to perform in 2023/24 and 544 required the skills of at least ten firefighters.

More than a quarter of adults (26.2 per cent) in England are obese – the highest proportion ever recorded, according to the latest Government figures.

Just under two-thirds of all adults in England are overweight or obese, a figure that is also the highest ever recorded.

According to the World Obesity Forum, this number will increase to eight in ten by 2060.

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