The Fifty Stone American Patty
EVERYBODY loves a good ‘fat American’ story. And the latest sage of a housebound woman from New Jersey plays up to all the usual stereotypes.
Fifty stone (700 lbs) Patty Brown had to be cut out of her second-floor bathroom and hoisted down the side of her house on Monday. Yep, that’s right, 50 stone. I Googled it. This is not a belated April fool.
The seven-hour rescue mission began after Brown fell at her New Jersey home and couldn’t get up. When ambulance crews arrived they couldn’t get her up either and there was no way they were going to get her down the stairs. So they called the fire department.
Three fire engines and 25 firefighters dashed to the house. But there was little they could do without taking the house apart. Which is precisely what the fire crews did.
First they dismantled the toilet and radiator, then they removed the bathroom window and cut a hole in the wall.
Fire chief Qareeb Bashir said the woman remained in high spirits throughout the rescue. “She actually had a pleasant personality. She was laughing and cracking jokes about the situation,” he said. So she was not just a fat American but a jolly one too.
A forklift truck that had been requested to lift the woman out of the building failed to materialize. So fire crews tied Brown into a metal basket and used ropes to lower her down the side of the building along a reinforced ladder.
Once she was on the ground ten men lifted her onto a stretcher with wheels and pushed her into the back of an extra large ambulance designed for oversized people. A neighbour said the ambulance resembled a tank.
So there you have it, America not only has supersized people, it has supersize ambulances to take them to hospital too.
Posted: 4th, April 2007 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
