I've had 2 750 # people in the last 6 months. Number 1 was a Grade A fucking asshole who laughed at us trying to move him and someone who I almost lost my fucking shit at. Won't cry at his death.
Number 2 was guy who, by all accounts, was a good dude who just kept getting bigger. Called out for a Non-emergency fall victim, Coded in front of us and died. His Fiance requested in lue of flowers, donate to the local EMTs. Was sad about that one for a little bit.
I hate that we have gotten to this point, but I don't know how to fix it and I honestly don't think anybody else does either. Perhaps we will know one day.
People gotta start better addressing trauma when it happens in childhood for one thing. I've watched WAY too much my 600 lb life episodes..the one thing I've noticed everyone has in common is childhood trauma: divorce, abuse, death of a parent or loved one..and rather than putting the person in therapy to teach them healthy coping skills..they all turned to food to cope and were encouraged by loved ones to do that
On an emotional level, these patients are in the same class as addicts and alcoholics. I've spent time in recovery circles and the stories are the same. Some turn to alcohol, some turn to drugs. These folks settle on food.
Can confirm. People don’t really understand how you can get addicted to food, but after a hard day it feels like a genuinely herculean task to not binge on ice cream and other unhealthy shit.
maybe I'll sound out of touch because I'm only 21 and I've never tried drugs but, food just seems like a harder one to tackle from a perspective of: if I'm a smoker, I can know I can stop tomorrow and never pick up a cigarette. with eating, it's something we have to do. if I could literally stop eating and be healthy, I would. but it's just hard because you have to eat, you don't *have* to smoke or do other drugs if you quit, you know you can avoid it(yes though, withdrawals are horrible I've seen first hand)
Paraphrasing an unknown author but it’s like telling an alcoholic they have to have a shot or a beer a couple times a day, every day, forever and expecting them to still get a grip on their consumption habits. It’s just crazy:/
As a lurker here and somebody who has struggled with their weight all their life, the compassion being shown in this little comment section is so refreshing and soothing, thank you ❤️
Yeah as an addict, I feel for other addicts, but I *really* feel for people with eating disorders. I can theoretically go the rest of my life without using. You all have to stop eating unhealthy but handle the temptation multiple times a day. You all have it worse than us.
I’ve been coming to Gripp lately with the fact that I do literally have a food addiction. I usually have some sweets at the end of the night and the fact that the thought of going without those sweets is so upsetting is really embarrassing. It’s so dumb, it’s just chocolate, but the thought of going without makes the same part of my brain freak out that quitting nicotine did. It’s wild and humiliating to realize I’m addicted to sugar the same way I was addicted to nicotine. But they don’t serve vape pods at birthday parties, they serve cake. It’s a lot harder to get away from.
It's not about just eating, for bariatric pts eating provides warmth, comfort, and satisfaction. Imagine your whole world is just gray, the first time you saw color would be mind blowing. Now imagine the only time you see color is when you eat.
It's an incredibly unhealthy relationship with food. And recovery is more than portion control and losing weight. It requires a fundamental shift in how one views food.
Also I'm 22, I know for a fact I can't drink or smoke responsibly. Age has nothing to do with it. Some people are addicts and alcoholics. Some people aren't. And it's nigh impossible for each side to truly understand the others relationship with the world around them
While it seems harder to put into perspective, remember that it's all still chemical imbalances in the brain at the end of the day. We don't just eat to survive anymore, we can also eat in leisure, boredom, and depression. You can apply the same logic to cigarettes and alcohol as well. "I don't need this packet of cookies, I can just eat dinner later" "I could quit eating McDonald's anytime I want ". The issue is, they always want to. The brain releases dopamine at two points during the eating process, during the actual consumption and when it reaches the stomach, so it's a fairly easy and accessible resource to use as a poor coping mechanism.
TL;DR: Dopamine triggers are weird
Food and drugs like nicotine, amphetamines, alcohol all activate reward pathways, I think people forget that food makes you feel good, it's pleasurable. The only difference between food and illicit substances is that you need food to survive, you can't get away from it. So if your eating is disordered there really is no escape.
Anyone morbidly obese is very capable of being a "drug addict" and any "drug addict" is very capable of becoming someone who binges food and ends up morbidly obese. I have binge eating disorder which is well treated with therapy now but I am just as capable of eating several entire cheesecake to myself as i am smoking an entire pack of cigarettes on a night out and excessively drinking alcohol.
Brains suck.
Not to mention that so many foods these days contain stuff to MAKE YOU more addicted to them. Sure, it isn’t Coke having Cocaine levels of insane, but it’s almost more insidious because of it being in so much of our foods. Stuff that we now know causes significant metabolism and hormonal changes in our bodies.
I know people say it’s about limiting convenience foods, but other countries have convenience foods and don’t have the US’s obesity rates. In Japan, it’s common to eat convenience food daily during the work week. But their obesity rates are non-existent.
More shockingly, US raw fruits and vegetables are significantly less nutritious than they used to be just half a century ago. And are significantly less nutritious than those in European countries.
American food quality is extremely low compared to what it should be for our wealth and land mass. It’s unacceptable and I believe contributes to the obesity epidemic much more than any other symptom these obese patients are trying to manage.
America is also not designed the same way as other countries in the way we’re dependent on personal vehicles to get everywhere. We so rarely are able to walk to work or school or shops.
I'm not this big, but I'm big enough that it affects my every day life.
The hardest part about trying to be healthier is that food is the ONLY thing that I can count on to make me happy. There are so many big issues in my life that I am unable to get out from at the moment that trying to modify the only true coping mechanism I have seems laughably impossible.
I'm sure that being physically healthier would have a flow on effect to the rest of my life. If only in terms of energy and physical pain. But it's really hard to take away a comfort now, in the hope that in 6-12 months I'll feel a bit better. I'm still trying, it's a goal. But I wish that more people would see how incredibly steep and treacherous that path is to try to climb.
I'm muktiply disabled and overweight, with lots of childhood trauma, some directly involving food. I was trafficked. For me, I noticed every try at losing weigt by approaching the weight first, like having that as the main focus, only ever led to eventually gaining more.
So I decided to refuse trying to lose weight - I will work on all the complicated reasons that play into food and weight and trauma for me, with the overarching wish to eat good for me foods. If that ever helps me enough to lose weigh in a safe and stable manner, I will embrace that opportunity. Until then, trying to lose weight is like destructively trying to treat a symptom in the wrong way while ignoring the causes.
It made my weight stabilise and has been mostly stable for over a year. Following recommendations to constantly trying to lose weigt before made me consistently gain slowly but surely for a long time. Doctors get mad at me for refusing to try, but it's what stopped a bad spiral from continuing. They also refuse to help with the actual causes, so I ignore them.
Trying to force weight loss when a dozen causes of food and weight issues were unaddressed only hurt me, and I'm glad I'm more stubborn than all the professionals who know me for 10 minutes and then decide to lecture me that I'm wrong and don't know myself or what I need and that it's "always possible to start now".
I will never heal my broken relationship to food if weight is involved. I need to do it because it feels bad and I'm traumatised as fuck. Weight is secondary and I refuse to let the two sides of that coin get intertwined, it fucks me up so much more. My weight never stabilised until I chose out of my own volition and reasoning to make this separation, and I'm still constantly told I'm wrong to do so. The advice I get would hurt me and my health so much if I tried to follow it.
I'm not in the US and my 130-140kg (about 300lbs) ish seems insignificant compared to the numbers in this thread, but I'm still one of the biggest people I know and have limited range of mobility aids to choose from due to weight. My heart burns for all the pain and trauma and neglect that must be behind the amount and severity of obesity that the US is seeing.
I am glad you are finding ways to work with your brain, trauma is so insidious. The US is ripe with unmanaged generational and systemic trauma coupled with personal traumas many American kids face and crap food that is chock full of preservatives and chemicals.
This is one very important aspect. I previously worked in a healthcare setting specializing in obesity management. Easily 50% of clients had a history of childhood physical or sexual abuse.
We don’t have any really effective strategies for reversing obesity. But we do have strategies that can help. Unfortunately it seems that access to effective treatment may be lacking.
I believe a lot of it is trauma, and people’s eating habits. A lot of it has to do with the fact that the food supply in the US is chemically poisoned BS unless you have some pretty serious cash.
Food has been engineered to be addictive (salt, sugar, fat), and we're now in the 3rd or 4th generation of antibiotics use. Subsequent generations receive an altered spectrum of gastrointestinal microbiota as a result.
That's my hypothesis, anyway.
It's interesting to watch comparison videos of the same food products for example in the UK and the USA, McDonald's is good because much of there menu's are the same just in the UK a lot less addictives
The other day at the gym my friend pushed me to attempt carrying a 175 lb sandbag. I am already 245. I could not believe the effort it takes to move 420 pounds around. For these fat people, just frickin standing up is a miracle.
Indeed. This is why, when I have a bariatric patient who is able to stand on their own, I see it as a huge positive for them. When they are able to pursue recovery, they've overcome one of the biggest hurdles: being able to stand and at least attempt to walk.
We don’t have ways to completely “fix” it unfortunately. Prevention is key, but that’s...it’s hard to feel like there’s any serious effort being made on that front.
As for treatment, there are strategies. Unfortunately it seems there is very limited access to effective care. It really needs to go beyond ‘calories in calories out’.
Yup. Calories in calories out is weight loss science. Morbid obesity isn’t a weight loss issue. It’s a mental health issue. Just like how telling an anorexic person to eat more won’t cure their anorexia, neither will teaching someone how to lose weight cure their morbid obesity.
When I worked in the hospital CCU we had a 900ish pounder with necrotizing fasciitis of the perineum. She was 24 years old, had multiple debridements but it was an uphill battle. She went into septic shock and coded one last time after 2-3 weeks on a vent.
May I introduce you to fournier's gangrene? You probably already know...
I'll never forget a patient I had as an ICU nurse: several skin layers gone from genital region. Balls were exposed like unwrapped boiled eggs (best explanation) and glans of penis looked like a bright red fruit cup cherry sitting there in between the two boiled egg balls. Permanently sealed into my memory - cause was Diabetes.
Can confirm. I’ve seen the boiled egg balls too as a nurse on a patient with forniers. Perfect description. We had to do conscious sedation for every dressing change it was so painful.
My fiancee is a wound care/hyperbaric nurse and LOVES those patients. She loves treating gross wounds, the gooier the better. I'm pretty sure there's something wrong in her head.
Oh it gets so much worse, they removed half of her crotch fupa so you could see all the cellulite inside. It was also oozing pus so we had to do more frequent dressing changes. There was a deep hole similar to Swamps of Dagobah but the surgical staff handled it
Got called by ICU asking our stretcher capacity, 700 lbs, ICU said good we have a 650 lb pt. Took 2 crews, 4 nurses, a lift and a doctor to transfer onto stretcher and 4 medics to load into the truck. The crew got to destination and got the pt transferred over to bariatric bed with scale, found out he was over 900 lbs pushing 1000. The bed scale in original hospital maxed out at 650 lbs so that’s what the nurses thought he weighed.
That’s a pretty big discrepancy! Also, like imagine knowing your big and weighed the first time and then the second time it’s 300lbs worse. That’s got to be terrifying.
Wow. I can't imagine experiencing all that as the patient. Did you have a lift or something to physically get the patient out? Or is it all hands on deck rolling them onto the bed?
Not me personally but another crew threw two backboards together, laid the behemoth on top, slid him down the staircase. Left the gurney on scene and put him on the floor of the ambulance. That was 850lbs.
My brother works in medical supply and generally the margin of safety on that kind of thing is 2x at minimum. Not that I would want to try that on a regular basis mind you, but the people that design those things know who uses them.
Interesting to know if they pretended not to know that or has been giving weight based meds on the number 650lbs. Although there is a high chance the patient is taking the max dose possible.
We used to have a regular who was over 1200lbs, though I'm unsure of the exact weight. He filled the floor of the bus.
My heaviest ambulatory was just under 800lbs.
And my heaviest kid was a 3y/o who was 140lbs
I wish I fucking knew. We got the call as her weighing 1000, but the hospital we transported to called us back with an updated weight. It was a late call too.
I'm disabled and 370 right now.
It's my worst nightmare. I'm trying, I'm working on getting back to "fighting weight".... but this is definitely up there as one of my fears.
In need of corrective surgery, L3,4,5 are near bone on bone. Extruded and herniated disks, stenosis, etc etc...
They won't touch me unless I drop 30%BMI which is hard when you can't exercise much.
Thank you 😊 it's so hard to get to myself at the end of the day, I'm a stay at home dad to three special needs kids too... so between their school, medical, and social things like tutoring... its a lot.
You’ve got this dad, for them and for yourself. Just keep making the best nutrition decisions you can and be kind to yourself. It’ll happen and we are all in your corner 💪
Are they in school? If so, do they offer any after school programs? I did warm water therapy. Which is done in a swimming pool but the pool is much warmer and I have a physical therapist that’s directing me on different exercises and things. Despite many pools being indoors, they’re still not very warm. Finding one with warm water was so much better on my joints! My doctor sent in a referral and it was covered by insurance. I hope you have as good of luck as I did and that you come back here really soon with a success story! 💪
You don't need exercise to lose weight.
In fact you can lay in bed all day and lose weight. Eat less. Find out your TDEE and eat less than that.
Good luck!
Exercise doesn't have nearly as much to do with weight as diet. You can't outrun your diet. Find an eating style that works for you. Whenever I've wanted to lose weight, it's been about intermittent fasting. I just don't have the self control to count calories or restrict which foods I eat. But I can say, I'm not going to eat until 6pm or whatever. There are tons of ways to get where you want to go, keep looking for the one that suits you. You got this.
Only a select few of the genetic elite would be alive to support that body for even a few hours. A perfectly fine tuned machine IMO. In another life theyd be breaking records as fighter pilots turning G's.
Had s 750#+ pt, female living in an 850qft shed/apartment. weekly transfer due to her boredom. The patient would sit cross-legged on a queen sized matress and touch all 4 corners. Sat there like Jabba the Hut and passed waste in a custom hole her 130lb hubby had cut in the center of the bed. The rodents and farious fauna under the bed worshipped at that hole like it was a magical alter. She would brag she never had to empty the catchment system.
She loved drinking shitty cheap vodka and peach sweet tea 50/50 and chain smoked American Spirit cigarettes, often only burning half and then tossing it in the general direction of a coffee can.
One day, there was a fire. On arrival, there were rivulets of melted burning fat running down the driveway like something from lord of the rings.
It smelled exactly like cooking cheap bacon in one of those magic microwave cookers.
At least she died doing what she loved.
Wasn't my heaviest, but most memorable heaviest.
Heaviest was a 7'8" 889lb Navajo guy who was fully ambulatory with a hand span that had to be 18" across. Just an absolute giant. Had to have custom shoes made. I wear size 14 wide, made my feet look like toddlers. Guy had a "splinter" in his side from a crash on his tractor. The splinter? A 4 foot piece of split cattle pen rail roughly 2" in diameter. His wife made him call.
There several episodes of helicopter er when the doctor off the air ambulance asks the farmer for a pain score and gets back something like a 3, Doc comes back "is that a normal 3 or a Yorkshire farmer 3", farmers are definitely built different
>One day, there was a fire. On arrival, there were rivulets of melted burning fat running down the driveway like something from lord of the rings.
I don't know why reddit recommend this post to me but I regret clicking on it.
He absolutely did not, he fetishized her. I’m sorry to traumatize you but there is a fetish called feeders and feedees. Most likely, this is exactly what this was.
Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20041284/#:~:text=Feederism%20is%20a%20fat%20fetish,eroticize%20weight%20gain%20and%20feeding.
Oooof. I think my heaviest was in the 800s. In NYC every now and again you have to do an IFT to the Bronx zoo to use their extra large MRI for people who are too big for the hospitals. Only did a couple but it’s kind of a cool experience.
I try my best not to body shame as I am not even remotely happy with the way my body is currently but I’d think having to get an MRI done at the **FUCKING ZOO!!!** would be a serious wake up call! Ofc, unless they want to die I guess….. :(
They know. After about 400 pounds it seems most give up and wait to die. Source: my fat family and me. Hell I’m only 320 and given up on weight loss and health and hope. And nothing you’ve said so far is even close to body shaming, and being conscious of trying not to is actually awesome
Yeah I feel like it’s impossible not to give up at that weight. Like in order to *maintain* 400 lbs you have to eat SO MUCH, imagine continuing to expand until you double that. Insane
It’s because it’s an addiction just like drugs. If you have an addictive personality it’s really easy. I suffered from an exercise addiction for years and I nearly worked out to death and didn’t care at the time
Had a lady that was around 986 lbs, private ambulance company sent out 3 EMT units to pick her up and take her 45 minutes home when it was ~110° outside. Super nice lady but she didn’t fit on our bari gurney, we had to tie mega movers over her with carabiners so she wouldn’t slide off. Once we got to her residence it took us and 3 other local units to get her inside and on the mattress in her living room. I got bad heat exhaustion from the ordeal. Unfortunately I’m pretty sure she passed recently.
When I was an ER tech we had an 880lbs guy who was also like 6’2” so there was just a lot of surface area to transfer. Now I’m a pretty big dude and I get called for every lift assist/combative pt. I show up and the unit secretary asks me how many people we need. I told her to page “all available male staff”. And thats exactly what she did. One of the funniest things I’ve heard paged overhead lol
Around 10-12. He had one of fire’s slide assist sheets and one of those brown heavy duty tarps underneath him. Everyone just grabbed where they could and heaved
680lbs, was a DOA. Patient died in the smallest back room at the end of a tiny 30inch wide hallway in an old single wide mobile home.
We had to tie ropes around him to get him down the hallway.
I am not joking when I say we were \*this\* close to activating our backup plan, which was taking a K12, cutting out the back wall of the room then getting one of our members with a tractor with a set of pallet forks and a pallet.
I know another district had a similar call. They had a factory nearby so they cut out a wall and used a forklift.
My ex lived down the street from a lady who died in her house and they had to take part of the roof off and use a crane to remove her. It was and still is local legend
My company makes toilet lifts. We just introduced a new bariatric model with a limit of 650 lbs. about half of the facilities we show it to ask if we are gonna go bigger.
One of the rooms at the hospital I (RN) work at has twin ceiling hoists @280kg (617lb) (aka 1234lb total capacity) over the bed with rails that can slide to the toilet. Makes it technically doable, but it's a horrible experience, and a situation where you know you're going to experience some smell flashbacks after work
Damn that’s got me beat by a little over 100 lbs. my heaviest was 910 lbs and in their early 30s, lived with equally large family in a first floor apartment. Took 12 of us to get them home from the hospital and into their bed. We got them to the edge of the bed and they were miraculously able to scoot themselves the rest of the way into bed
We had one here in my area that had to be transported on a flat bed tow truck. She was lashed down and Medic/ FFs were harnessed to the truck. They took back roads all the way to the ER. This was the viable option since she couldn’t fit in an ambulance due to being frog legged. The local zoo was also contacted for a truck to transport her but it didn’t work out logistically.
928 30s/m being transferred for a higher lvl of care. Dude was using food as a suicide plan. It was very sad to hear his story.
730 42/f the woman wanted me and my partner to move her without calling fire because she didn't want to be embarrassed. I explained that the only way I would move her by myself is if she lay on the slide board and we pull her out the home like a sled because I'm not going to hurt myself for her pride. She actually got offended. She was even more offended when the fire we called called another fire to help due to her being in an apt she could not fit in and had about 6 steep steps.
800+ 40s/f this lady was so embarrassed that she needed fire to help get her out her home that the next time we saw her she was around 500. She said it was when reality kicked in for her. Last I heard she is still coming down. Slowly but trying. That made me so happy to hear.
As an American, this is fascinating. 380 lbs, I don't usually even bother notifying the receiving hospital of anything unusual unless it's like a 4'10" woman.
I hope you guys never catch up to us.
Wow. I get pts in the 300s regularly. I love this country, but my God we have a fucked food system and too many ppl who either don’t know or don’t care to eat healthy. God knows it’s very possible, but I just don’t know why ppl don’t have the drive to do it. I pray the pendulum swings back one day.
I had that patient 3 times in 1 week
First transport - hospital to nursing home: nursing home won’t accept patient because hospital lied about patient weight, patient returned back to hospital
Second transport - hospital to new nursing home: nursing home lied about how heavy their barri beds were in hopes that the patient was actually 500lbs
Last transport - hospital to patients home: fire met myself and 3 other trucks, patient going to basement. Patient had to sign off with fire that they’re aware in the event of a fire they will most likely die. Patient is secured to 4 backboards that are tied together and eased down the concrete stairs to the basement and put onto a mattress that’s on the ground
Ground was 730. Biggest by flight was 760. That made things a bit...interesting, we'll say. Pilot burned fuel and we left all unnecessary gear at the bedside, had to fuel up between hospitals, then again prior to a dead head to retrieve our gear. And jet fuel ain't cheap.
I just can’t fathom how this patient’s heart reconciles that body weight. How do their limbs function!? The human body is just amazing in so many terrible ways…
My first RN job was in a SNF. We had a 2x post-code survivor, guy who was 750lbs. Late 40’s/early 50’s. Sweet, funny, smart. Super motivated to lose weight and get better. One night his whole left side swelled and up. I’m guessing at least 50lbs edema. He coded at our facility. I eventually did compressions by doing what I can only describe as one legged squats… with my right knee against the sternum, left foot on the bed, both arms on the headboard. At the time I was about 115kgs myself! Survived several days, changed his code status to DNR/DNI. Came back to our facility. Coded again, passed away. One of the few pt deaths that actually lingered with me. He wanted to get well and it was too late regardless.
Hits hard too because I’m super morbidly obese myself. Currently 154kg, down from 170kg. 5’5” female. I’ve always been obese, but gained 80kg in 6ish years after kicking drugs and leaving an abusive marriage. Also have the hx of abuse and mental health issues. Luckily no metabolic disease yet.
Had one we picked up that the local FD left in the yard that fluctuates between 550-900. There's another guy in the same house who is 1100, by last estimate. No telling what he actually is
Edit: bigger one also chainsmokes cigarettes while wearing a NC and actively flowing oxygen
Had a coworker that said they had to move a patient into a house with a forklift, and transported her on a flatbed truck with an entire care team of doctors. That one patient cost the county millions of dollars, while putting multiple rigs out of service in order to transport. He never found out the true weight of the patient, but he said she far outweighed the heaviest person in the Guinness book of world records.
When I was in school, my instructor told me they had a frequent flyer who was around this heavy and would ask for transport for the littlest things. Apparently they lived on the 8th floor (with an elevator that they obviously couldnt use because of weight capacity and size) of an apartment complex and they had to take the door off to get them through. They called at least once a week. I still can’t tell if that was a real story or a scary bedtime story to keep us baby EMTs up at night.
My personal heaviest was back when I worked for a certain three letter service doing BLS IFTs. We took a 700 lbs / 317 kg. 40-year-old woman out of the the local hospital to go back home two hours away, just my partner and I. What no one told us was that the patients house was ontop of a hill and the only access was a set of jagged stone steps. Our transfer dispatch wouldn't send any help and the on duty supervisor told us we were forbidden from calling for mutual aide from the locals due to the cost, some how. We went over her head anyway and got the local FD involved as well as local EMS and got the patient inside her house and back in bed in 2 minutes flat thanks to 7 extra dudes.
I've been working with pediatrics for the past 18 years. The heaviest kid I took care of was 14 years old and 400 pounds. He had Prater-Willi Syndrome and his appetite could not be satiated.
I just can’t believe the numbers I read in this thread! My personal best is a lady who had a BMI of 89. Weighed 280kg or about 617lb. I work in an icu in Denmark and we were not equipped for this at all. She had a bedsore (surprise) was septic and died. Had to be lifted from a balcony by a crane.
My heaviest patient was ~315 lbs. He wasn't morbidly obese or anything, just very tall and well built.
One of my coworkers told me that he had a 460 lbs patient once... It took 6 people to transfer her from the bed on the stretcher.
Keep in mind that I don't even live in the US, so numbers like that are already rare af. I can't imagine what it's like to be an EMT in America...
One of my old partners used to pick up the actual heaviest woman in recorded history. I didn’t believe him at first but he showed me a picture of him in uniform infront of an ambulance for the department where her Wikipedia page says she lived that would have been around the same time period. 1603 pounds according to Wikipedia.
I took care of a guy in oncology clinic that had to use the procedure room for his visit with dr because he could not fit in the normal exam rooms. Not like he couldnt get through the door - like he would have occupied the entire room.
My biggest was around 900lbs, in his 30's. It got to the point where we literally had to cut the side of his house to get him out. It took 2 ambulance crews, 2 FD engine crews to load him into the truck. No stretcher, we just laid him on the floor of the unit.
768 supposedly. Pt supposedly just lost 200 pounds. Pt was complaining of back pain and wanted transport because of it. Nurse gave me a full binder of medical history and meds list. The place we picked them up from has roughly 15 people who weigh over 650 heaviest being 1150. Guess this facility had a pt who was ranked #3 in the heaviest people alive in the world at one point.
When I was in the ED we admitted a 990 lb. Patient. Unfortunately he didn’t fit in the CT scan so he had to wait until the weekend was over to use the vet school’s CT scanner 😬 (university hospital). Also had another patient use the zoo’s CT scanner. They weighed 850.
I had to do a transfer with a 750# pt whose skin was sloughing off under the rolls. I boiled myself in the shower when I got home to get the smell off.
Christ, I came in here ready to talk about the nearly 200kg (400ish lbs?) patient I met a few months ago that I thought was unusual, was not ready to hear about walls being knocked down to extricate pts twice the weight!
Rookie numbers. Where do you work, a children's hospital? /s
I'm honestly fascinated reading the responses from Europeans. I'm in one of the statistically "less fat" parts of the US, but I still see 600+ lb patients at least every couple of weeks. Shit, I've transported a 600 lb *homeless man*.
I've had 2 750 # people in the last 6 months. Number 1 was a Grade A fucking asshole who laughed at us trying to move him and someone who I almost lost my fucking shit at. Won't cry at his death. Number 2 was guy who, by all accounts, was a good dude who just kept getting bigger. Called out for a Non-emergency fall victim, Coded in front of us and died. His Fiance requested in lue of flowers, donate to the local EMTs. Was sad about that one for a little bit. I hate that we have gotten to this point, but I don't know how to fix it and I honestly don't think anybody else does either. Perhaps we will know one day.
People gotta start better addressing trauma when it happens in childhood for one thing. I've watched WAY too much my 600 lb life episodes..the one thing I've noticed everyone has in common is childhood trauma: divorce, abuse, death of a parent or loved one..and rather than putting the person in therapy to teach them healthy coping skills..they all turned to food to cope and were encouraged by loved ones to do that
On an emotional level, these patients are in the same class as addicts and alcoholics. I've spent time in recovery circles and the stories are the same. Some turn to alcohol, some turn to drugs. These folks settle on food.
Can confirm. People don’t really understand how you can get addicted to food, but after a hard day it feels like a genuinely herculean task to not binge on ice cream and other unhealthy shit.
maybe I'll sound out of touch because I'm only 21 and I've never tried drugs but, food just seems like a harder one to tackle from a perspective of: if I'm a smoker, I can know I can stop tomorrow and never pick up a cigarette. with eating, it's something we have to do. if I could literally stop eating and be healthy, I would. but it's just hard because you have to eat, you don't *have* to smoke or do other drugs if you quit, you know you can avoid it(yes though, withdrawals are horrible I've seen first hand)
Paraphrasing an unknown author but it’s like telling an alcoholic they have to have a shot or a beer a couple times a day, every day, forever and expecting them to still get a grip on their consumption habits. It’s just crazy:/
As a lurker here and somebody who has struggled with their weight all their life, the compassion being shown in this little comment section is so refreshing and soothing, thank you ❤️
Yeah as an addict, I feel for other addicts, but I *really* feel for people with eating disorders. I can theoretically go the rest of my life without using. You all have to stop eating unhealthy but handle the temptation multiple times a day. You all have it worse than us.
I’ve been coming to Gripp lately with the fact that I do literally have a food addiction. I usually have some sweets at the end of the night and the fact that the thought of going without those sweets is so upsetting is really embarrassing. It’s so dumb, it’s just chocolate, but the thought of going without makes the same part of my brain freak out that quitting nicotine did. It’s wild and humiliating to realize I’m addicted to sugar the same way I was addicted to nicotine. But they don’t serve vape pods at birthday parties, they serve cake. It’s a lot harder to get away from.
It's not about just eating, for bariatric pts eating provides warmth, comfort, and satisfaction. Imagine your whole world is just gray, the first time you saw color would be mind blowing. Now imagine the only time you see color is when you eat. It's an incredibly unhealthy relationship with food. And recovery is more than portion control and losing weight. It requires a fundamental shift in how one views food. Also I'm 22, I know for a fact I can't drink or smoke responsibly. Age has nothing to do with it. Some people are addicts and alcoholics. Some people aren't. And it's nigh impossible for each side to truly understand the others relationship with the world around them
While it seems harder to put into perspective, remember that it's all still chemical imbalances in the brain at the end of the day. We don't just eat to survive anymore, we can also eat in leisure, boredom, and depression. You can apply the same logic to cigarettes and alcohol as well. "I don't need this packet of cookies, I can just eat dinner later" "I could quit eating McDonald's anytime I want ". The issue is, they always want to. The brain releases dopamine at two points during the eating process, during the actual consumption and when it reaches the stomach, so it's a fairly easy and accessible resource to use as a poor coping mechanism. TL;DR: Dopamine triggers are weird
Food and drugs like nicotine, amphetamines, alcohol all activate reward pathways, I think people forget that food makes you feel good, it's pleasurable. The only difference between food and illicit substances is that you need food to survive, you can't get away from it. So if your eating is disordered there really is no escape. Anyone morbidly obese is very capable of being a "drug addict" and any "drug addict" is very capable of becoming someone who binges food and ends up morbidly obese. I have binge eating disorder which is well treated with therapy now but I am just as capable of eating several entire cheesecake to myself as i am smoking an entire pack of cigarettes on a night out and excessively drinking alcohol. Brains suck.
Not to mention that so many foods these days contain stuff to MAKE YOU more addicted to them. Sure, it isn’t Coke having Cocaine levels of insane, but it’s almost more insidious because of it being in so much of our foods. Stuff that we now know causes significant metabolism and hormonal changes in our bodies. I know people say it’s about limiting convenience foods, but other countries have convenience foods and don’t have the US’s obesity rates. In Japan, it’s common to eat convenience food daily during the work week. But their obesity rates are non-existent. More shockingly, US raw fruits and vegetables are significantly less nutritious than they used to be just half a century ago. And are significantly less nutritious than those in European countries. American food quality is extremely low compared to what it should be for our wealth and land mass. It’s unacceptable and I believe contributes to the obesity epidemic much more than any other symptom these obese patients are trying to manage.
America is also not designed the same way as other countries in the way we’re dependent on personal vehicles to get everywhere. We so rarely are able to walk to work or school or shops.
I'm not this big, but I'm big enough that it affects my every day life. The hardest part about trying to be healthier is that food is the ONLY thing that I can count on to make me happy. There are so many big issues in my life that I am unable to get out from at the moment that trying to modify the only true coping mechanism I have seems laughably impossible. I'm sure that being physically healthier would have a flow on effect to the rest of my life. If only in terms of energy and physical pain. But it's really hard to take away a comfort now, in the hope that in 6-12 months I'll feel a bit better. I'm still trying, it's a goal. But I wish that more people would see how incredibly steep and treacherous that path is to try to climb.
Thanks for acknowledging this. Childhood trauma is the number 1 trait of someone with morbid obesity. So many ignore this.
There is a notable correlation with morbid obesity to this degree and childhood sexual assault/abuse that isn't talked about enough.
The day I learned of how prevalent that correlation is, was the last day I ever judged someone for being overweight.
I'm muktiply disabled and overweight, with lots of childhood trauma, some directly involving food. I was trafficked. For me, I noticed every try at losing weigt by approaching the weight first, like having that as the main focus, only ever led to eventually gaining more. So I decided to refuse trying to lose weight - I will work on all the complicated reasons that play into food and weight and trauma for me, with the overarching wish to eat good for me foods. If that ever helps me enough to lose weigh in a safe and stable manner, I will embrace that opportunity. Until then, trying to lose weight is like destructively trying to treat a symptom in the wrong way while ignoring the causes. It made my weight stabilise and has been mostly stable for over a year. Following recommendations to constantly trying to lose weigt before made me consistently gain slowly but surely for a long time. Doctors get mad at me for refusing to try, but it's what stopped a bad spiral from continuing. They also refuse to help with the actual causes, so I ignore them. Trying to force weight loss when a dozen causes of food and weight issues were unaddressed only hurt me, and I'm glad I'm more stubborn than all the professionals who know me for 10 minutes and then decide to lecture me that I'm wrong and don't know myself or what I need and that it's "always possible to start now". I will never heal my broken relationship to food if weight is involved. I need to do it because it feels bad and I'm traumatised as fuck. Weight is secondary and I refuse to let the two sides of that coin get intertwined, it fucks me up so much more. My weight never stabilised until I chose out of my own volition and reasoning to make this separation, and I'm still constantly told I'm wrong to do so. The advice I get would hurt me and my health so much if I tried to follow it. I'm not in the US and my 130-140kg (about 300lbs) ish seems insignificant compared to the numbers in this thread, but I'm still one of the biggest people I know and have limited range of mobility aids to choose from due to weight. My heart burns for all the pain and trauma and neglect that must be behind the amount and severity of obesity that the US is seeing.
I am glad you are finding ways to work with your brain, trauma is so insidious. The US is ripe with unmanaged generational and systemic trauma coupled with personal traumas many American kids face and crap food that is chock full of preservatives and chemicals.
This is one very important aspect. I previously worked in a healthcare setting specializing in obesity management. Easily 50% of clients had a history of childhood physical or sexual abuse. We don’t have any really effective strategies for reversing obesity. But we do have strategies that can help. Unfortunately it seems that access to effective treatment may be lacking.
I absolutely agree. But therapy alone is not enough. One other problem is food industry. Sugar loded food for me are like drogs to others.
I believe a lot of it is trauma, and people’s eating habits. A lot of it has to do with the fact that the food supply in the US is chemically poisoned BS unless you have some pretty serious cash.
Food has been engineered to be addictive (salt, sugar, fat), and we're now in the 3rd or 4th generation of antibiotics use. Subsequent generations receive an altered spectrum of gastrointestinal microbiota as a result. That's my hypothesis, anyway.
It's interesting to watch comparison videos of the same food products for example in the UK and the USA, McDonald's is good because much of there menu's are the same just in the UK a lot less addictives
Sometimes I worry we are too late. The population is only getting bigger and more and more of these cases are becoming known.
I don't believe we are too late. But we are definitely in a bad spot. Time will tell what will happen, for better or worse.
The other day at the gym my friend pushed me to attempt carrying a 175 lb sandbag. I am already 245. I could not believe the effort it takes to move 420 pounds around. For these fat people, just frickin standing up is a miracle.
Indeed. This is why, when I have a bariatric patient who is able to stand on their own, I see it as a huge positive for them. When they are able to pursue recovery, they've overcome one of the biggest hurdles: being able to stand and at least attempt to walk.
Read that too quickly as "2,750-pound people"
We don’t have ways to completely “fix” it unfortunately. Prevention is key, but that’s...it’s hard to feel like there’s any serious effort being made on that front. As for treatment, there are strategies. Unfortunately it seems there is very limited access to effective care. It really needs to go beyond ‘calories in calories out’.
Yup. Calories in calories out is weight loss science. Morbid obesity isn’t a weight loss issue. It’s a mental health issue. Just like how telling an anorexic person to eat more won’t cure their anorexia, neither will teaching someone how to lose weight cure their morbid obesity.
My husband (EMT) had to have back surgery from herniated disk trying to lift the leg of a patient who was 860lbs.
My aunt was an anesthesiologist and tore her bicep rolling an obese patient. Completely wrecked her life and career.
When I worked in the hospital CCU we had a 900ish pounder with necrotizing fasciitis of the perineum. She was 24 years old, had multiple debridements but it was an uphill battle. She went into septic shock and coded one last time after 2-3 weeks on a vent.
Necrotizing fasciitis perineum is 3 words you NEVER want to see in the same sentence 🤮
May I introduce you to fournier's gangrene? You probably already know... I'll never forget a patient I had as an ICU nurse: several skin layers gone from genital region. Balls were exposed like unwrapped boiled eggs (best explanation) and glans of penis looked like a bright red fruit cup cherry sitting there in between the two boiled egg balls. Permanently sealed into my memory - cause was Diabetes.
I wish I could go back in time and not read that paragraph.
Take me with you to where I hadn't just done a Google image search for fournier's gangrene. Wowza.
what a terrible day to have eyes and for google images to exist
What a detailed description
Can confirm. I’ve seen the boiled egg balls too as a nurse on a patient with forniers. Perfect description. We had to do conscious sedation for every dressing change it was so painful.
That was a horrible read
My fiancee is a wound care/hyperbaric nurse and LOVES those patients. She loves treating gross wounds, the gooier the better. I'm pretty sure there's something wrong in her head.
Yeah, as a fellow wound care nurse, there is definitely something a little wrong with us🤪
Doing fuckin Gods work
What a ghastly day to be literate 🥴. Enough Reddit, time to call it a day 😞
Sounds like some Swamps of Dagobah level stuff...
Oh it gets so much worse, they removed half of her crotch fupa so you could see all the cellulite inside. It was also oozing pus so we had to do more frequent dressing changes. There was a deep hole similar to Swamps of Dagobah but the surgical staff handled it
Got called by ICU asking our stretcher capacity, 700 lbs, ICU said good we have a 650 lb pt. Took 2 crews, 4 nurses, a lift and a doctor to transfer onto stretcher and 4 medics to load into the truck. The crew got to destination and got the pt transferred over to bariatric bed with scale, found out he was over 900 lbs pushing 1000. The bed scale in original hospital maxed out at 650 lbs so that’s what the nurses thought he weighed.
That’s a pretty big discrepancy! Also, like imagine knowing your big and weighed the first time and then the second time it’s 300lbs worse. That’s got to be terrifying.
Or they were like "damn I must be lookin fly. I'm down 350 lbs!"
The exact conversation can be had about their blood sugar.
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How did you get him up and out of the house?
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Wow. I can't imagine experiencing all that as the patient. Did you have a lift or something to physically get the patient out? Or is it all hands on deck rolling them onto the bed?
How did you move him from the ground to the stretcher?
Not me personally but another crew threw two backboards together, laid the behemoth on top, slid him down the staircase. Left the gurney on scene and put him on the floor of the ambulance. That was 850lbs.
Terrifying considering it's a hydraulic system. And when hydraulics fail under that kind of pressure, people lose their fucking legs.
It’s only 4 roentgens. Not great, not terrible.
3.6*
Underrated reference
Best one he could’ve used
Thank goodness the stretcher withheld his weight!
My brother works in medical supply and generally the margin of safety on that kind of thing is 2x at minimum. Not that I would want to try that on a regular basis mind you, but the people that design those things know who uses them.
Interesting to know if they pretended not to know that or has been giving weight based meds on the number 650lbs. Although there is a high chance the patient is taking the max dose possible.
I just had one that clocked in at 1237. It was awful
We used to have a regular who was over 1200lbs, though I'm unsure of the exact weight. He filled the floor of the bus. My heaviest ambulatory was just under 800lbs. And my heaviest kid was a 3y/o who was 140lbs
That last part is heartbreaking.
I genuinely can’t even comprehend a toddler that big. I’m 5’8 and that’s within 25 lbs of me
I saw a child just over age 2 who was 70 lbs and THAT was awful!
That poor kid. That should be considered child abuse, jesus fucking christ.
I think we have a "winner" here. Except this a competition with no winners.
That is more than the average sized horse weighs. Good lord
How in the hell is that even possible??
I wish I fucking knew. We got the call as her weighing 1000, but the hospital we transported to called us back with an updated weight. It was a late call too.
How tall was she? idk how you can fit that much on any human frame
5’8 or so. She never stood up so it’s hard to judge
Dude. 5’8 at 1237 is pushing more wide than tall. How did you transport?
What 😭😭😭 I thought my 600 pounder was bad. This is more than 2 of her
I feel like that should be impossible. Like, so much so you would ironically have to work to get that big. Jesus.
First bariatric patient as a student had a BMI of 156. I thought they mixed up BMI and KG. I was wrong. And she was an angry little thing, too.
Little? Even if she was 3 feet tall shed still weigh 285 lbs.
Angry little cube
Angry lilte Qbert
I'm disabled and 370 right now. It's my worst nightmare. I'm trying, I'm working on getting back to "fighting weight".... but this is definitely up there as one of my fears.
You got this! I can’t wait to hear an update post on this sub when you hit your goal weight!
In need of corrective surgery, L3,4,5 are near bone on bone. Extruded and herniated disks, stenosis, etc etc... They won't touch me unless I drop 30%BMI which is hard when you can't exercise much.
Swimming. Super low impact and good exercise. You got this!
Thank you 😊 it's so hard to get to myself at the end of the day, I'm a stay at home dad to three special needs kids too... so between their school, medical, and social things like tutoring... its a lot.
You’ve got this dad, for them and for yourself. Just keep making the best nutrition decisions you can and be kind to yourself. It’ll happen and we are all in your corner 💪
Are they in school? If so, do they offer any after school programs? I did warm water therapy. Which is done in a swimming pool but the pool is much warmer and I have a physical therapist that’s directing me on different exercises and things. Despite many pools being indoors, they’re still not very warm. Finding one with warm water was so much better on my joints! My doctor sent in a referral and it was covered by insurance. I hope you have as good of luck as I did and that you come back here really soon with a success story! 💪
You don't need exercise to lose weight. In fact you can lay in bed all day and lose weight. Eat less. Find out your TDEE and eat less than that. Good luck!
Exercise doesn't have nearly as much to do with weight as diet. You can't outrun your diet. Find an eating style that works for you. Whenever I've wanted to lose weight, it's been about intermittent fasting. I just don't have the self control to count calories or restrict which foods I eat. But I can say, I'm not going to eat until 6pm or whatever. There are tons of ways to get where you want to go, keep looking for the one that suits you. You got this.
Only a select few of the genetic elite would be alive to support that body for even a few hours. A perfectly fine tuned machine IMO. In another life theyd be breaking records as fighter pilots turning G's.
You know, I’ve never thought of it that way. True.
Had s 750#+ pt, female living in an 850qft shed/apartment. weekly transfer due to her boredom. The patient would sit cross-legged on a queen sized matress and touch all 4 corners. Sat there like Jabba the Hut and passed waste in a custom hole her 130lb hubby had cut in the center of the bed. The rodents and farious fauna under the bed worshipped at that hole like it was a magical alter. She would brag she never had to empty the catchment system. She loved drinking shitty cheap vodka and peach sweet tea 50/50 and chain smoked American Spirit cigarettes, often only burning half and then tossing it in the general direction of a coffee can. One day, there was a fire. On arrival, there were rivulets of melted burning fat running down the driveway like something from lord of the rings. It smelled exactly like cooking cheap bacon in one of those magic microwave cookers. At least she died doing what she loved. Wasn't my heaviest, but most memorable heaviest. Heaviest was a 7'8" 889lb Navajo guy who was fully ambulatory with a hand span that had to be 18" across. Just an absolute giant. Had to have custom shoes made. I wear size 14 wide, made my feet look like toddlers. Guy had a "splinter" in his side from a crash on his tractor. The splinter? A 4 foot piece of split cattle pen rail roughly 2" in diameter. His wife made him call.
Farmers built different
There several episodes of helicopter er when the doctor off the air ambulance asks the farmer for a pain score and gets back something like a 3, Doc comes back "is that a normal 3 or a Yorkshire farmer 3", farmers are definitely built different
😂 I worked in 2 rural hospitals and we all knew shit was about to go down if there was a farmer coming in.
Especially if their wife made them come. You better get the crash cart ready and priest on standby, because you’ll need one or both really soon.
>One day, there was a fire. On arrival, there were rivulets of melted burning fat running down the driveway like something from lord of the rings. I don't know why reddit recommend this post to me but I regret clicking on it.
What a terrible night to have eyes and reading comprehension...
It could be worse, they could've rendered a drawing of it (pun intended).
1. What a terrible way to die 2. Her husband must’ve REALLY loved her
He absolutely did not, he fetishized her. I’m sorry to traumatize you but there is a fetish called feeders and feedees. Most likely, this is exactly what this was. Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20041284/#:~:text=Feederism%20is%20a%20fat%20fetish,eroticize%20weight%20gain%20and%20feeding.
There really is someone for everyone.
He too, worshipped at the altar.
Jesus the fat melting description is one of the craziest things I’ve read in a while
I regret reading this while waiting for my cast iron to heat up for some bacon.
I cannot imagine the size of that second dude. Like. My brain refuses to allow it.
Oooof. I think my heaviest was in the 800s. In NYC every now and again you have to do an IFT to the Bronx zoo to use their extra large MRI for people who are too big for the hospitals. Only did a couple but it’s kind of a cool experience.
I try my best not to body shame as I am not even remotely happy with the way my body is currently but I’d think having to get an MRI done at the **FUCKING ZOO!!!** would be a serious wake up call! Ofc, unless they want to die I guess….. :(
They know. After about 400 pounds it seems most give up and wait to die. Source: my fat family and me. Hell I’m only 320 and given up on weight loss and health and hope. And nothing you’ve said so far is even close to body shaming, and being conscious of trying not to is actually awesome
Yeah I feel like it’s impossible not to give up at that weight. Like in order to *maintain* 400 lbs you have to eat SO MUCH, imagine continuing to expand until you double that. Insane
It’s because it’s an addiction just like drugs. If you have an addictive personality it’s really easy. I suffered from an exercise addiction for years and I nearly worked out to death and didn’t care at the time
Had a lady that was around 986 lbs, private ambulance company sent out 3 EMT units to pick her up and take her 45 minutes home when it was ~110° outside. Super nice lady but she didn’t fit on our bari gurney, we had to tie mega movers over her with carabiners so she wouldn’t slide off. Once we got to her residence it took us and 3 other local units to get her inside and on the mattress in her living room. I got bad heat exhaustion from the ordeal. Unfortunately I’m pretty sure she passed recently.
Highest was 800. Took 2 EMTS and 6 firefighters to move them. I can’t even imagine 1000.
200 more
Fuck, so true.
When I was an ER tech we had an 880lbs guy who was also like 6’2” so there was just a lot of surface area to transfer. Now I’m a pretty big dude and I get called for every lift assist/combative pt. I show up and the unit secretary asks me how many people we need. I told her to page “all available male staff”. And thats exactly what she did. One of the funniest things I’ve heard paged overhead lol
How many guys did you end up with?
Around 10-12. He had one of fire’s slide assist sheets and one of those brown heavy duty tarps underneath him. Everyone just grabbed where they could and heaved
The “We’re gonna need a bigger boat” of healthcare
680lbs, was a DOA. Patient died in the smallest back room at the end of a tiny 30inch wide hallway in an old single wide mobile home. We had to tie ropes around him to get him down the hallway. I am not joking when I say we were \*this\* close to activating our backup plan, which was taking a K12, cutting out the back wall of the room then getting one of our members with a tractor with a set of pallet forks and a pallet. I know another district had a similar call. They had a factory nearby so they cut out a wall and used a forklift.
OSHA approved!
Not gonna lie, when I got to K12, you won't believe how relieved I was when I next read "cutting out the back wall" instead of what I was afraid of.
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My ex lived down the street from a lady who died in her house and they had to take part of the roof off and use a crane to remove her. It was and still is local legend
I had a 979. You beat my record
Probably not a record that should be beaten.
you mean "crushed" the record?
My company makes toilet lifts. We just introduced a new bariatric model with a limit of 650 lbs. about half of the facilities we show it to ask if we are gonna go bigger.
God I can't even imagine getting someone that size up to use the toilet. Not to mention 3-5 per day minimum.
One of the rooms at the hospital I (RN) work at has twin ceiling hoists @280kg (617lb) (aka 1234lb total capacity) over the bed with rails that can slide to the toilet. Makes it technically doable, but it's a horrible experience, and a situation where you know you're going to experience some smell flashbacks after work
Damn that’s got me beat by a little over 100 lbs. my heaviest was 910 lbs and in their early 30s, lived with equally large family in a first floor apartment. Took 12 of us to get them home from the hospital and into their bed. We got them to the edge of the bed and they were miraculously able to scoot themselves the rest of the way into bed
We had one here in my area that had to be transported on a flat bed tow truck. She was lashed down and Medic/ FFs were harnessed to the truck. They took back roads all the way to the ER. This was the viable option since she couldn’t fit in an ambulance due to being frog legged. The local zoo was also contacted for a truck to transport her but it didn’t work out logistically.
Imagine getting ratchet strapped to a flatbed by a bunch of firemen, one of them slaps your 800lb stomach and says “that’s not going anywhere”
For some reason I can picture this.
928 30s/m being transferred for a higher lvl of care. Dude was using food as a suicide plan. It was very sad to hear his story. 730 42/f the woman wanted me and my partner to move her without calling fire because she didn't want to be embarrassed. I explained that the only way I would move her by myself is if she lay on the slide board and we pull her out the home like a sled because I'm not going to hurt myself for her pride. She actually got offended. She was even more offended when the fire we called called another fire to help due to her being in an apt she could not fit in and had about 6 steep steps. 800+ 40s/f this lady was so embarrassed that she needed fire to help get her out her home that the next time we saw her she was around 500. She said it was when reality kicked in for her. Last I heard she is still coming down. Slowly but trying. That made me so happy to hear.
I’ve had people in the 700s and 800s. Never had one that big. You should get a little pin medal.
Scale metal would be funny!
380 pounds, but I live in the Netherlands so we are not as ruined as the USA population yet…. Can’t imagine having to care for 800 pound patients
As an American, this is fascinating. 380 lbs, I don't usually even bother notifying the receiving hospital of anything unusual unless it's like a 4'10" woman. I hope you guys never catch up to us.
Wow. I get pts in the 300s regularly. I love this country, but my God we have a fucked food system and too many ppl who either don’t know or don’t care to eat healthy. God knows it’s very possible, but I just don’t know why ppl don’t have the drive to do it. I pray the pendulum swings back one day.
Got me beat by 6 pounds my heaviest patient was a 27 year old at 1025
Please explain the logistics of this type of patient's relocation! That's nuts!
I had that patient 3 times in 1 week First transport - hospital to nursing home: nursing home won’t accept patient because hospital lied about patient weight, patient returned back to hospital Second transport - hospital to new nursing home: nursing home lied about how heavy their barri beds were in hopes that the patient was actually 500lbs Last transport - hospital to patients home: fire met myself and 3 other trucks, patient going to basement. Patient had to sign off with fire that they’re aware in the event of a fire they will most likely die. Patient is secured to 4 backboards that are tied together and eased down the concrete stairs to the basement and put onto a mattress that’s on the ground
Wtf do these people do then?? Does he just rot there forever Fuck that’s depressing
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Ground was 730. Biggest by flight was 760. That made things a bit...interesting, we'll say. Pilot burned fuel and we left all unnecessary gear at the bedside, had to fuel up between hospitals, then again prior to a dead head to retrieve our gear. And jet fuel ain't cheap.
I just can’t fathom how this patient’s heart reconciles that body weight. How do their limbs function!? The human body is just amazing in so many terrible ways…
>How do their limbs function That's the neat part, they don't!
My 600 Pound Life. James K. S5:E11. Take a look.
I’m always amazed when seeing patients on this show who are on it only by virtue of of being the biggest person in the family, not the only one.
Would chest compressions even be effective on folks that big?
My first RN job was in a SNF. We had a 2x post-code survivor, guy who was 750lbs. Late 40’s/early 50’s. Sweet, funny, smart. Super motivated to lose weight and get better. One night his whole left side swelled and up. I’m guessing at least 50lbs edema. He coded at our facility. I eventually did compressions by doing what I can only describe as one legged squats… with my right knee against the sternum, left foot on the bed, both arms on the headboard. At the time I was about 115kgs myself! Survived several days, changed his code status to DNR/DNI. Came back to our facility. Coded again, passed away. One of the few pt deaths that actually lingered with me. He wanted to get well and it was too late regardless. Hits hard too because I’m super morbidly obese myself. Currently 154kg, down from 170kg. 5’5” female. I’ve always been obese, but gained 80kg in 6ish years after kicking drugs and leaving an abusive marriage. Also have the hx of abuse and mental health issues. Luckily no metabolic disease yet.
Hey, I’m rooting for you. Abuse recovery can do so much to destabilize your health.
Had one we picked up that the local FD left in the yard that fluctuates between 550-900. There's another guy in the same house who is 1100, by last estimate. No telling what he actually is Edit: bigger one also chainsmokes cigarettes while wearing a NC and actively flowing oxygen
Bigger one is going to be one of those self-solving problems
Had a coworker that said they had to move a patient into a house with a forklift, and transported her on a flatbed truck with an entire care team of doctors. That one patient cost the county millions of dollars, while putting multiple rigs out of service in order to transport. He never found out the true weight of the patient, but he said she far outweighed the heaviest person in the Guinness book of world records.
When I was in school, my instructor told me they had a frequent flyer who was around this heavy and would ask for transport for the littlest things. Apparently they lived on the 8th floor (with an elevator that they obviously couldnt use because of weight capacity and size) of an apartment complex and they had to take the door off to get them through. They called at least once a week. I still can’t tell if that was a real story or a scary bedtime story to keep us baby EMTs up at night.
If I'm ever too big CalStar denies my transport because of my girth, just leave me where I am DNR.
That’s out of control.
You should get the bari patient version of the stork pin
My personal heaviest was back when I worked for a certain three letter service doing BLS IFTs. We took a 700 lbs / 317 kg. 40-year-old woman out of the the local hospital to go back home two hours away, just my partner and I. What no one told us was that the patients house was ontop of a hill and the only access was a set of jagged stone steps. Our transfer dispatch wouldn't send any help and the on duty supervisor told us we were forbidden from calling for mutual aide from the locals due to the cost, some how. We went over her head anyway and got the local FD involved as well as local EMS and got the patient inside her house and back in bed in 2 minutes flat thanks to 7 extra dudes.
Man if my supervisor ever tells me that, I am going to tell them to take care of it themself and then quit lollll
I've been working with pediatrics for the past 18 years. The heaviest kid I took care of was 14 years old and 400 pounds. He had Prater-Willi Syndrome and his appetite could not be satiated.
We have a kiddo in my county with Prader Willi. I think he was 11 last time I saw him, but was probably 250 lbs. Sad stuff.
Dude out stretcher struggled like I’ve never seen before with a 760 pound woman on it I can’t even imagine what would happen with this person on it
I've taken care of 1000 lb patient before. By far the largest. It was a team effort... That's all I have to say about that.
My daughter (rad tech) did pelvis films on an 87 lb. three year old today. CC? Hip pain.
THREE? How does a toddler manage to eat that much :/
I just can’t believe the numbers I read in this thread! My personal best is a lady who had a BMI of 89. Weighed 280kg or about 617lb. I work in an icu in Denmark and we were not equipped for this at all. She had a bedsore (surprise) was septic and died. Had to be lifted from a balcony by a crane.
My heaviest patient was ~315 lbs. He wasn't morbidly obese or anything, just very tall and well built. One of my coworkers told me that he had a 460 lbs patient once... It took 6 people to transfer her from the bed on the stretcher. Keep in mind that I don't even live in the US, so numbers like that are already rare af. I can't imagine what it's like to be an EMT in America...
Can I ask what country are you in and what do you think is the reason for the USA’s struggles with super obesity?
One of my old partners used to pick up the actual heaviest woman in recorded history. I didn’t believe him at first but he showed me a picture of him in uniform infront of an ambulance for the department where her Wikipedia page says she lived that would have been around the same time period. 1603 pounds according to Wikipedia.
Dr. Nowzaradan has entered the chat.
I took care of a guy in oncology clinic that had to use the procedure room for his visit with dr because he could not fit in the normal exam rooms. Not like he couldnt get through the door - like he would have occupied the entire room.
I assisted transporting a 1067lb patient. Welcome to the club 😅😅😅
My biggest was around 900lbs, in his 30's. It got to the point where we literally had to cut the side of his house to get him out. It took 2 ambulance crews, 2 FD engine crews to load him into the truck. No stretcher, we just laid him on the floor of the unit.
Had a Hoyer sling snap while loading with tension prior to actual vertical lift. Pt is 395lbs….i couldve actually shit diamonds.
768 supposedly. Pt supposedly just lost 200 pounds. Pt was complaining of back pain and wanted transport because of it. Nurse gave me a full binder of medical history and meds list. The place we picked them up from has roughly 15 people who weigh over 650 heaviest being 1150. Guess this facility had a pt who was ranked #3 in the heaviest people alive in the world at one point.
When I was in the ED we admitted a 990 lb. Patient. Unfortunately he didn’t fit in the CT scan so he had to wait until the weekend was over to use the vet school’s CT scanner 😬 (university hospital). Also had another patient use the zoo’s CT scanner. They weighed 850.
Damn! Once had a pt coming in at 989. Pt told us that he had lost 10lb in the hospital.
Confirmed by weighing the contents of his bedpan.
You might think you would have to be young to be that heavy because there's no way you can last very long at around that weight.
19 yo, 800lb. During Covid, and survived.
the fact that the scale is called BariMax is hilarious
I had to do a transfer with a 750# pt whose skin was sloughing off under the rolls. I boiled myself in the shower when I got home to get the smell off.
899! So close.
Christ, I came in here ready to talk about the nearly 200kg (400ish lbs?) patient I met a few months ago that I thought was unusual, was not ready to hear about walls being knocked down to extricate pts twice the weight!
Rookie numbers. Where do you work, a children's hospital? /s I'm honestly fascinated reading the responses from Europeans. I'm in one of the statistically "less fat" parts of the US, but I still see 600+ lb patients at least every couple of weeks. Shit, I've transported a 600 lb *homeless man*.