Sharjah firefighters were forced to extricate a 300-kilogram man through his balcony doors and then lift his obese frame using a firetruck ladder to rescue him from his flat on Monday, officials said on Tuesday.

The unidentified man was unable to leave the apartment and needed urgent medical attention at a hospital.

The man’s family members were desperate and after seeking alternative options to the man leaving through the narrow opening of his flat’s front door opted to seek help from Sharjah Civil Defence.

Colonel Sami Khamis Al Naqbi, Director-General of Sharjah Civil Defence, confirmed with Gulf News that they received a request for assistance from the family on Monday to help remove the man and shift him to the hospital.

Time was critical, the family said, because the man’s medical condition was worsening and he needed immediate medical assistance in hospital and could not be treated at home

The exact nature of the man’s medical problems and his age were not released by authorities.

The Civil Defence team came to the aid of the man who stayed in the fourth-floor flat in a building located in Abu Shagara in Sharjah.

Firefighters used an aerial ladder to lift the man out of his apartment through the balcony of the family’s apartment.

Al Naqbi explained that firefighters put a cover around his body in order not to hurt him and to complete the operation safely.

The operation started around 6pm on Monday and took nearly 90 minutes to complete.

Once safely brought down to the ground, he was transported by National ambulance to Al Qasimi Hospital.

Obese rescues increase in UK

In September 2016, the BBC reported there was a 30 per cent surge in bariatric rescues across the UK since 2015.

The BBC said that firefighters were increasingly conducting “bariatric rescues” to remove obese people stuck in their homes for a variety of reasons — ranging from being too large in body weight and size to fit through standard door frames or windows to simply being too obese to walk on their own.

Incidents in the UK increased, the BBC said, from 709 cases in 2012-13 to 944 in 2015-16 across the country.

A paramedic from London said the problem in many cases was loss of mobility.

A number of incidents involved helping with the removal of a deceased obese person from their home to an undertaker’s ambulance.

“We dealt with the most extreme patients; they would be coming up to, and often exceeding, 660-770lb (300-350kg) in weight,” he told the BBC

source : gulfnews