20 Aug 2009

German emergency services had to use a crane to lift an overweight woman out of her home in the western city of Bottrop.

The woman, who is believed to weigh 550 lbs, was put on a stretcher, manoeuvred out of her top-floor window, and then lowered into a waiting ambulance.

Meanwhile, in Australia, a 57-year-old Brisbane man who suffered an asthma attack had to be rescued by a crane as well when emergency services failed to lift the 660 lb-man from his bed.

Authorities called a crane to help remove the obese man through a three-foot-wide window in his flat, according to a report in the Courier Mail.

"It was very important for us to be able to get a crane up there. Because of the thin stairwell it would have been virtually impossible to get him down," Steve Marmotta, station officer for Queensland Fire and Rescue Services, told the newspaper.

The man was manoeuvred out the window and then lowered 33 feet to the waiting ambulance below, 3 1/2 hours after the emergency call was made.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/6063674/Obese-German-woman-lifted-from-house-by-crane.html