Obesity forces Palm Beach County rescuers, hospitals to buy larger, sturdier equipment

More fat sickos.

Last year, Palm Beach Gardens Fire Rescue counted at least five patients it had been dispatched to help who weighed more than 400 pounds. Two tipped the scales at more than 600 pounds.

It was a logistical challenge that required extra trucks to be dispatched to provide enough manpower to move each patient.

It was a medical crisis for those who had to be moved.

It was even a risk for the 10 or so firefighters who had to find ways to safely get the patients onto stretchers not meant to hold that kind of weight and lift them into ambulances without hurting themselves.

So Palm Beach Gardens Fire Rescue did what other departments and hospitals across the country are doing: It invested in bigger, stronger equipment for bigger, heavier people.

"We're not talking about an obscure population," said James Zervios, spokesman for the Obesity Action Coalition in Tampa. "We're talking 93 million people."

That is to say, 93 million Americans are overweight. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly one in three Americans is overweight and another one-third is obese, and about one in 20 is at least 100 pounds heavier than he or she should be, or "morbidly obese."

Zervios and others say many emergency responders and hospitals aren't prepared to care for such patients, though they are starting to make changes.

Which is sad, since the bronto sapiens should be making the changes by losing the weight.