The evacuation of an obese woman from her home mobilized Wednesday, May 10 significant and unprecedented resources in Stenay, where about forty firefighters were at work, we learned from the Meuse prefecture.
The woman needed to be evacuated for emergency care in a hospital setting. "An intervention of this type, with such a level of complexity, has never arrived in France," Bernard Burckel, chief of staff of the prefect of the Meuse, told France 3 Lorraine. According to local media the woman weighs 391 kilos.
Ten gendarmes and forty firefighters
In addition to nurses and doctors, the operation mobilized ten gendarmes and 40 firefighters, including some from the unit specialized in rescue operations in dangerous environments (GRIMP) as well as a bariatric ambulance, specially equipped for people of large build, and coming from Belgium. The person, who had lived in Stenay for more than 20 years, had until now refused care.
The evacuation operation, scheduled for several months, was carried out in coordination with many actors, such as doctors from the specialty center against obesity of the CHRU Nancy, the home hospitalization center of the Verdun hospital center or the SAMU, according to a statement from the prefecture. It required the demolition of many partitions in the woman's apartment and cutting the floor in order to evacuate it through the ground floor window. Access to certain streets around the site of the intervention was prohibited for part of the day.
«
The evacuation was carried out from 13:30 p.m. to 14:30 p.m., "said the Meuse prefecture. The patient was safely placed in the ambulance and then taken to the emergency room in Nancy where she was hospitalized at the end of the day. A similar operation had already taken place, in December 2020 in Perpignan, recalls France 3 Lorraine. The 50-year-old man, who "was approaching 300 kilos", had to be taken out of his home using a crane. His hospitalization had saved his life, according to the channel.
