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Wednesday October 27, 2010
10-man team helps get 300kg diabetic to hospital
By ANN TAN
[email protected]
GEORGE TOWN: It took 10 people to carry a man weighing about 300kg after he slipped and fell in his flat. M. Balaji had woken up to answer nature’s call when he slipped and injured his abdomen and thigh at his Bandar Baru Air Itam unit at about 6.50am yesterday. His mother, known only as Rajasundi, 60, immediately called the Penang Hospital for assistance. A civil defence team and hospital personnel arrived shortly after and pulled him out of the washroom to the living room using a piece of cloth.
Heave-ho: Firefighters, civil defence personnel and hospital personnel carrying M. Balaji to the ambulance. He was sent to the Penang Hospital for treatment.
Balaji was overheard crying to the civil defence personnel to send him to the hospital immediately. “We know you are in pain but we do not have the strength to carry you down. We will have to wait for further help,” one of them told him.
A team from the Paya Terubong fire station arrived later and, after confirming he had no spinal injuries, a group of 10 men were called in to carry him down from his ninth floor unit to the ground floor using a stretcher. He was then sent to Penang Hospital for treatment. Rajasundi said her son, who is suffering from diabetes and hypertension, weighed about 280kg five years ago but had put on more weight now.
“He was born to be overweight. He already weighed 9kg when he was small,” she said of Balaji, the eldest among her five children. Rajasundi said her other children did not have a weight problem. “He used to be a hotel employee 10 years ago but when his legs started to give way due to his increasing weight, he had to quit his job and stay at home,” she added.
